At the Core are Daffodils
by Becca-W
Summary: This storyline picks up almost directly after Mariemaia's christmas debute; featuring the entire cast and a lovely new set of reasons for self-doubt and discrimination, they find dependence and independence to be an intertwined necessity.
1. Ch1 An Introduction

Disclaimer: Usual applies - nothing but the podium and the audience belongs to me.  
  
This one'll stick, I know it, I feel it. I really hope you enjoy this - since "Starting Over", my only other series, I've taken in a wider view of the GW universe - really a very detailed, absorbing place, even in the series. I'm glad I get to take that absorbing place into this storyline; I'm happy I get to connect with the characters again. I hope my efforts result in your staying on to see what the cast has done, as I'm sure you agree, the writer rarely decides what the people in the story do, being only the translater across the gulfs separating the story from its readers.  
  
*Occurs in AC 196, beginning in - the colonies.  
  
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He watched her from above, arms crossed, nodding to himself at several points in her dialogue - she had practiced this enough to know her way without coaching of when to pause, a problem she had had earlier. People needed to soak in what she said to fully understand what she meant and at times, she rushed forward too quickly, leaving the audience reeling and herself out of breath.  
  
Picking a bit of fuzz from his sleeve he again concentrated his eyes on Relena, her face somewhat hard to read as she was far below. He had set himself in the upper balcony, deserted for the occasion in order to repair a fallen-in step on one of the staircases leading up to it. The velvet drapery, heavy and, he suspected from the smell, moldy, hid much of his figure, leaving only a pantleg and elbow to pop out, seen only by those with hawk-like vision.  
  
She stood straight, shoulders pushed back, neck and head uplifted to a degree that suggested an intimate attentiveness, almost affection, she shared with her audience. Her expression remained empty, her mouth and eyes really the most expressive. She spoke with determination yet the speech she recited from memory held in its tone no demand, hands gripping the podium lightly.  
  
He could hear the conclusion ringing in her voice as she finished up on another subtopic. On that note of finality he left his post above the seated crowd, careful in the matter of that fallen-in step on the way down. Keeping clear of the main entrance halls and other public areas he found his way to the left wing, ground floor, which connected with the stage on which Relena had just finished up. The dim, shattering noise of applause reached him as he turned a corner and into the room in which all the speakers stood, Relena among them.  
  
At hearing another's tread she turned her head, brightening, a smile pulling at her mouth. Motioning to some chairs at his side she turned back to the tight group she was talking with, their voices low, muttering tones in the drone of hundreds of people leaving an echoing auditorium. Lights were turned low; the scraping of chairs being dragged into storage sounded beyond the stage; the glow left on Relena's hair dimmed and the balding official next to her mopped at his scalp with a hanky.  
  
The group disembarked on their various assignments minutes later: business was now dealt with, they each had agendas to keep. They all shook hands and said Farewell, Looking forward till next time. That wrapped up, the group disbanded. Relena turned to him, tired and still smiling - they were virtually alone now, with only a janitor at the other end of the hall cleaning up the changing rooms. She sat down opposite him, resting her elbows on her knees, her stare meeting his readily.  
  
"Any difficulties?" She referred to his reaching the top balcony without interference - in waiting for his answer she grabbed a cookie from a serving tray on the coffee table.....mmh. Dry. Like chewing clumpy sawdust.  
  
"No." He held out a cup of water and she took it. "You spoke normally this time." She took a gulp of the water to wash down the bite of cookie.  
  
"Good. Anything else?" She asked this wryly, but with warmth. He reflected on her performance that evening as she took the rest of the water and cookie.  
  
"Pause more often." She shrugged obligingly.  
  
"Alright, we'll work on that. Where's Pagan?" The butler entered at that moment, interrupting the cozy office discussion they were having, and said the car was waiting. Relena and Heero stood up, nodded at each other, settled a time when Heero would come to the office that afternoon and parted ways.  
  
The year was January 6th, A.C. 198. Much had happened, yet, with a bigger outlook on the activities surrounding the Earth and the Colonies, one could say just as well that almost nothing had happened since last Christmas. Days had a more or less normal flavor and little mayhem had arisen since Mariemaia's rise to fame and her neat downfall from it (a set record as it happened all on the same day). This was noted as gratefully as it was met sarcastically, and not just in the Preventors Agency, the one branch of the government that received the most shock and blame for the incident.  
  
Relena sat down and looked out the windshield, over Pagan's shoulder. They had done well - officials Pagoda and Schmiffon (the Balding One), Representative R.Luivani, and herself had grouped together over the weekend in a quick tour of one of the larger Colonies, supposedly regrouping in the week after next to finish up the project. They were a group with similar views, delving into politics that shared several platforms; the one difference existing between them were Relena and Luivani's youth, their age having made the rest distrust them slightly in comparison to their experience. This had been quickly resolved once the two officials came to know Relena and Luivani better.  
  
Relena turned her head to watch a passing mansion, Greek-style, the fountain in the front shut off, thoughts on Heero. His help and general presence of late seemed to have given them both a level of trust that they had to get used to. But he supported her, and whether or not he made this a vocal fact was unimportant (such a requirement would have been, at the least, ridiculous) as they both focused on her work rather than either his or her life. Either way, it was kind of nice to have something so constant in her life.  
  
The car stopped and Pagan was there to open the door for her. Stepping out she turned, catching sight of her temporary place of residence - the Loreil-de-Montagne, or Loreil of the Mountains, a recently built hotel the size of a small castle, based on a creation in France that had been torn apart in the eighteenth century. Flanked by two personnel officers she was accompanied to her suite overlooking the rising curve of the entirety of the Colony. It made such an abstract picture that the scene halted her, making her follow with her eyes the consistent curve of the structure supporting all those buildings and people, the darkness of space a dull background on which the Colony hung, spotted by stars.   
  
Heero met her up there a while after she arrived. She had just ordered tea - she ordered something for him as well - and they sat down again, this time discussing her week. Before continuing the group tour of that day she had to reach the smaller Colony 1A8809 by noon tomorrow in order to discuss efficiency of immediate resource delivery; afterwards, a luncheon followed by a dinner meeting held by a Countess (in title only) and her court of lawyers.  
  
Heero 'Harrumph"-ed at reading up the scheduled meetings with Countess Florine of Corennette. Relena spared a quick glance before returning to her reading material (an overview of a council meeting from last month - she best not have skipped over anything in that meeting..).  
  
"Mmh." Relena shook her head while reading, having heard the tell-tale sound.  
  
"She's easy to handle."  
  
"You should take Luivani."  
  
"No, I don't want to put up a front of aggression." Heero frowned at the picture of the Countess in the newspaper from June of A.C. 197.  
  
"She'll take advantage of your time."  
  
"I know, but she's very hard to turn down." The lawyers, at least. A tangle with the Countess's pack was last on Relena's wish-list, yet she was almost on a first-name basis with them - not the Countess, of course, oh no, that wouldn't be right...  
  
Heero leaned back, ruffling through the contents of a report recently delivered to the suite. Tapping the china of the teacup against her lower lip Relena circled several necessities on a list of items she would need for the week, feet tapping out a rythm on the rug. Although the sound was muffled Heero looked up, saw them dong a jig and raised an eyebrow at Relena. She, catching this, stopped, laying the pencil down as well. Pausing, she set her teacup down.  
  
She glanced out the window at the darkening Colony, her jet lag making the early evening feel like midnight, and breathed out slowly. Heero ceased watching her, returning, if listlessly, to shuffling packets of paper, ears tuned to her needs and moods.  
  
"You need to sign this." He handed her something and she left it on the table. It took a moment before she said anything again then she turned to him, studying his face in the light thrown around by the various lamps and light fixtures in the suite. (The paper went ignored). His eyes flickered up and he froze in mid-page-turn.  
  
For a moment, they stared at each other, seeped in thought, Relena wanting to say something - and saying nothing. They were tired, she had work, he was helping, he was staying...she could not say anything - indeed, she found she did not want to say anything lest it be something surprising to them both. No, no, keep quiet, that needs to be signed, anyway, just keep quiet...  
  
"Lady Une." Relena said, straightening, "I forgot, when I am to see her?"  
  
Heero bent down, quickly retrieving the agenda from under the pile on the table between them.  
  
"Next Monday, on earth." She frowned, to herself.  
  
"Earth."  
  
"Hn."  
  
"When is the shuttle scheduled to leave?"  
  
"At 0400." Relena dug the heel of her palm into her cheekbone, eyes shut. She would get precious little sleep. Peeking at Heero briefly, she asked, somewhat reluctantly, "Will you stay on the Colonies?"  
  
He shrugged, indicating he had not yet made the choice. She left it at that and they continued working till later that evening.  
  
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The two figures at the head of the runway eventually became the figures of Lady Une and a Preventer agent in uniform. Little was said on the way to the car due to the noise made by the plane - when they finally did reach a quiet area Lady Une broke the ice - in a way - by reintroducing Relena and Mariemaia, who had accompanied her to the landing grounds.  
  
The girl was still in a wheelchair, still very bewildered and unusually quiet. She spoke softly, cold in her welcome but cordial enough. Relena found her presence disturbing but pitied her - the bullet shot by her Grandfather, Dekim, had narrowly missed her spinal column but had jarred several nerves and disrupted some muscles, thereby crippling her for the time being until she could begin physical therapy. Until then, it seemed Lady Une had taken her in. They were living, as far as Relena could tell, at the Preventor's quarters.  
  
At some point Mariemaia parted company with them and Relena told her she hoped to visit again at a more appropriate time. The girl, surprisingly, gave her the smallest of smiles - a neat, even, white-toothed little smile - and held out a pale hand (she had her father's skin tone, Relena noted, as well as many of his facial characteristics).  
  
"We hope to have you come again, Miss Relena." The name, first given to her officially by her former companion Dorothy Catalonia, sounded strange coming from Mariemaia's mouth in such an unintentional manner. Relena was reminded of Dorothy through it (she was a cousin of the girl's, the reminder was no wonder). She took the offered hand, smiling warmly. Mariemaia continued briefly, "I apologize for my lack of presence in the conversation. Perhaps we can pick it up another time." The blue-blue eyes were open for a moment, fully receiving and accepting of Relena's person.  
  
She was completely unjudgemental. Relena could have been Quasimodo's ugly brother and been received as sweetly as this. And Mariemaia seemed to be healing well, fortunately. Perhaps charm was genetic - Treize seemed to have passed it on to her, among the other traits noted. It was a while before she saw Mariemaia again but she never doubted the few words exchanged to have been true.  
  
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Coincidentally, a familiar contact of Heero's was staying at the Colony of 1A8809, this serving as the reason Relena did not see him immediately on earth upon her arrival. At seeing her off at the airport - not watching from the gate, but rather from a table a distance away - he had left and headed for the residential areas of 1A8809 by way of shuttle bus. He was an inconspicuous figure among the scant few citizens to be seen at that time of day, carrying nothing but a coat, slung over the crook of his arm, dangling at the hip.  
  
He arrived at a small, neatly constructed building nearly identical to the others dotting the block - the exception being it was painted a bright powder blue - and stared for a moment. The lawn was kept in fair condition and the shutters were closed but for those on the lower level. Heero sloped along the concrete path to the doorstoop where he rang the bell. Continuously.  
  
A large range of noises sounded from inside - a series of Bangs, one Crash, no, two Crashes, a couple of Thudds - then silence. A lock was unbarred, a chain rustled and the door opened a little. Tired eyes looked into Heero's face and recognition slowly dawned in them. Finally, the door was opened wider - Heero stepped inside.  
  
The contents of the house failed to uphold the relatively clean impression one received from the outside - paper, crumpled and unused, sprinkled the floor in various piles as did marker caps (without the markers), chewed-on pens, a small collander in the corner, an old Macaroni and Cheese box, and several boxer shorts. The host of this snug home, standing as though having been punched at first, waved a clumsy arm around, wrist dangling as if unatttached. A sleep-mussed braid lay looped over the young man's shoulder.  
  
"Hi there, make yourself at home." Heero nodded, slipping out of his shoes. He picked up yesterday's newspaper from the floor (seemingly unread) and set it on a stand in the hall. Looking up, he caught Duo's shape disappearing around the corner and followed after it, into the kitchen. The disarray in there was, surprisingly, almost nonexistent. He sat down at a table set in the middle of the room, watching his companion of old move around in a drunken, newly-wakened stupor, scratching his sides and head while searching the drawers and cabinets.  
  
Duo held up a measuring cup containing ground coffee, eyebrows raised briefly - Heero took the offer wordlessly, settling into the unpadded chair he was on.  
  
Duo's shirt was unbuttoned, something he had slept in last night, and he wore only one sock. He glanced over at Heero, feeling dimly puzzled but, the time being barely six in the morning on a day he did not work, he had yet to truly feel the emotion. Handing Heero a mug they waited for the coffee to brew, both staring at the machine. In truth, the act of nonverbally communicating with each other had escaped them - coffee sounded better than an innocent interrogation.  
  
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"Any particular reason for this visit, Heero?" An unintentional Slurp sounded.  
  
"No."  
  
"Oh. Alright." The coffee was very, very bitter. Duo sighed, glancing around in a near-moody way. He blew breath out one corner of his mouth then tapped his fingers against the table surface. The silence was, if at all possible, clotted and dewy, and Heero waited for the intensity of the unexpected visit to wear off a little. After a few minutes of drumming (without rythm) Duo looked up at the clock in a strange way.  
  
"Hilde's not here yet..." Heero glanced up, still sipping, in a mildly questioning manner that prompted Duo into an explanation (somewhat long-winded).  
  
Heero had known of a Hilde, but what this Hilde had to do with Duo's present life was unknown to him. The reason for his mentioning her, though, was less complex than it first sounded: having had few chances to see each other once the war was over Duo and Hilde had met up on a when-the-time-is-right basis. Through events they had no control over they now both had lives on the same Colony, this making it possible for the relationship to be furthered rather than strung along: since then Duo kept a room for when Hilde felt like staying over.  
  
"She's a good girl. Maybe you'll meet her." Duo leaned forward, eyes fastening on Heero again. "How long are you staying, anyway?"  
  
Heero shrugged and Duo returned the motion. They both stared out into the yard - a brief expanse of green opening into a towering pile of metal tubes, various bits and parts of different-sized motors, chunks of elderly mobil dolls, a few feet and hands-parts of mobil suits and other such paraphernalia belonging to Duo's (and Hilde's) growing scrap pile business. The sun glinted off the metal, but due to the manmade 'ozone' glass shield separating the Colony's atmosphere from the dead vacuum of space, the light came through hazier, reflecting not as sharply as it would on earth on such a sunny morning.  
  
Duo brought their mugs to the counter for a refill and continued talking about recent activities, Hilde, the house. He never had a house before - an orphanage sectioned off into rooms for a dozen people was not a house; the cockpit of a Gundam was not a house; a school dormitory was even less of a house than the aforementione cockpit. Duo was not used to keeping house, either, and, according to his roommate, he kept the garage more organized than the hall closet. What really got to Hilde, though, as was told by Duo, was Duo's tendency to leave his clothes everywhere - fresh underwear in particular.  
  
Heero pulled out a pair of longjohn's from under the table at hearing this, all questions in his mind dying at that last bit. The second cup of coffee was even more bitter than before, forcing Heero to take his time.  
  
They heard the front door open then, shutting with a Bang.  
  
"Duo, I've - Duo, what's all this?" The voice sounded mildly irritated and Duo stood up from his chair.  
  
"Hilde, come on in the kitchen, I - "  
  
"I cleaned this up last week, Duo!"  
  
"Yeah, I know, but come here for a - "  
  
"I'm not doing this anymore for you, you know - oh, I brought over a crate of tangerines, since you never have any frui - "  
  
"Hilde, please, come into the kitchen." Silence, cautionary footsteps, a face peeking out from around the wall. Hilde's eyes widened at the figure in the chair.  
  
"Oh. Hello." She turned quizzically to Duo, his boxers lying on top of the crate of tangerines she had brought in. Setting these on the counter she approached the table at which they sat, waiting for introductions.  
  
Duo motioned to Hilde.  
  
"Heero, this is Hilde. Hilde, this is an old - partner of mine." Tilting her head to the side Hilde turned to Heero, who now brought his face up to meet her's in a blunt (not altogether welcome but not unkind) stare. They exchanged wordless greetings before she once again turned to Duo. An old light had sprung up in her face as all three unknowingly shared the same, back-to-the-past type of bowel twist (Duo's made a sound, although that could be due to the coffee).  
  
"Pilot zero-one?" Duo doubled back and Heero glanced out at the yard again, making Hilde's eyes travel over his shoulders once more.  
  
"Huh. Yeah."  
  
"Ah." She turned back around. "I'll be back in a moment."  
  
They were left staring after her, Duo grinning a little, Heero quite expressionless.  
  
"Astute." He said. Duo lifted his shoulders.  
  
"She's good." Sliding up to the other counter he took the boxer shorts off the crate. "Tangerine, Heero?"  
  
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	2. Ch2 Doll in an Envelope

Disclaimer: Usual applies.  
  
(Writing fanfiction again is so inspiring - I was truly afraid that, after the first finalized attempt I made two years ago, I wouldn't be able to produce anything after. HA-HA! - I proved myself wrong! For whoever reads this, and enjoys this - well, thanks, alot, 'cuz that makes two of us - Becca-W).  
  
Ch.2 Doll in an envelope  
  
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"Harry, I think my napkin's stained, look - "  
  
"Lis', be quiet, they're going to start any moment now."  
  
"Ridiculous, not even all the guests are here yet." Pause. A sigh followed.  
  
"Will you stop fidgeting?"  
  
"My slip's riding up, Harry.." Lisa whispered.  
  
"Go to the restroom and fix it, then."  
  
"No, I'll miss something, that always happens.."  
  
"Fine. Look, the rest seem to be coming."  
  
Harry and Lisa Feltmann hushed together as they watched the final wave of guests appear at the mouth of the Banquet Hall, slipping in to find their seats at the many little tables set up in neat rows across the floor. The lights dimmed once, twice - any moment now they really would start and not everyone had found their place yet.  
  
Relena sat alone at a table to the far right, in the upper reaches of the Banquet Hall, hands overlapping each other, elbows resting on the table edge, ankles crossed. Her eyes followed the recently-arrived across the floor; they were all people she knew, people she had worked with or talked with at some point, and sometimes only people she had seen at a distance. These functions acted as another way to introduce candidates in an election or new officials: they were regarded with skepticism by the senior members - nevertheless, everyone came. Appearances had to be kept up.  
  
The Countess Florine of Corenette, with one regal Swish of her fur stole, sat at a table on the far left of the hall: a man accompanied her, most likely the Count of Corenette - he stooped to greet a few people on the way to their table. The Countess's eyes found Relena, seated by her lonesome, at the table across the room from her and cast a very cool stare into the other's eyes.  
  
At the moment, Luivani, with a woman at her side, entered and Relena gladly brought her gaze around to them rather than the Countess (the meeting with her and her pack had been very formal and uncomfortable; she held the outcome - or lack there of - against Relena in an almost personally offended manner). As they neared her seat Relena stood up and waved: Luivani moved toward her.  
  
"Good evening, Miss Darlian."  
  
"Good evening, Miss Luivani. Would you care to sit with me?" Luivani raised an eyebrow and Relena smiled. "I hope you don't mind; I would enjoy enjoy your company."  
  
Relena had hoped a number of at least two people would come with her - at such events one came with a partner, it seemed one of the many unwritten laws. The two she had counted on - a lawyer she had befriended a month ago and a personal assistant stationed on earth - needed to back out of the arrangement and she had gone on her own. Luivani was a welcome sight and Relena had usually been on good terms with her, so she happily received both her and the lady stranger.  
  
Luivani pulled up a chair for the other before sitting down, gesturing with an arm toward her.  
  
"Miss Darlian, this is Chea Giole. Chea, this is the Vice Foreign Minister, Relena Darlian." Chea bopped Luivani on the shoulder with the knuckles of one hand, leaning in a bit.  
  
"Of course she is, Rigolda, I'm not blind." Turning a bright smile to Relena Chea offered a hand in greeting, Relena taking it with as much the warm spirit as the other offered. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Miss..."  
  
"Darlian."  
  
"Oh." The lights dimmed for the final time and they quieted, Luivani curling one hand around Chea's as they watched the stage. Although one would not have been able to tell when they were sitting down Chea was taller than Luivani, her hair as curly but a dark-blonde rather than brown, with eyes of teal, contrasting with the moss brown of Luivani's. The three sat in their mottled group, listening to the brief symphony, followed by the introduction to the evening's activities. Relena felt somehow like the third wheel.  
  
Donations and charity events followed a pattern: music, sweet-talking, bidding, all done without the aid of food. Luivani, by the end of the night, had too much to drink and Relena was on her third half-glass of champagne. Both felt delightfully tipsy and Chea kept a steady hand on her partner's elbow the later half of the evening.  
  
Relena glanced around, eyes somewhat listless and glazing over as she counted heads - hundred, hundred and one, oh look, it's Miz Gerbier - her chin propped up in a hand. In the interval allowed between speakers people danced to the music being played, the Countess of Corenette quite a-dazzling as she was swept about the small dance floor. Relena watched her for but a moment, one eyebrow gently quirked. Luivani glanced over her shoulder, shrugged at the light, reserved show of merriment being cast on the floor behind her and faced Relena.  
  
"How is the neutralization process of the elder Colonies going?"  
  
"Rigolda, not at dinner, please..."  
  
"Chea, I'm bored, she's bored - no offense - and it's a fact." Relena shrugged.  
  
"None taken." Chea patted the back of Luivani's hand.  
  
"Alright, just don't get excited.." Relena smiled at her before being forced to meet the Representative's stare head-on. She cleared her throat.  
  
"Well, we've had little opposition - after all, the materials used to build the Colonies before are now considered ineffecient in comparison with newer 'versions' of the same compound. In the time since their construction the colonies built before After Colony 115 are most likely in need of remodeling, if not complete renovation. In most cases, the riddance of these - mostly residential areas bordering on moon farms - is the more favorable choice. Unfortunately, these are seen as historical sites, which, by law, they are."  
  
"Sentimentalities." Luivani picked the olive out of her drink. "What about the people living there?" Her tone was rough and steady: she didn't look up from the olive pinched between her finger and thumb.  
  
"Each Colony in need of reconstruction and or neutralization possess roughly ten thousand people. In such extreme cases as Colony G15x, though, the population, according to the '185 census, maxes out at twenty-five thousand. This could cause a problem, since Colony space is scarce and expensive. Few Colonies have been built that are legally up-to-date because of the materials used in the war."  
  
"Yeah, scrap-heaps and junkyards are getting alot of money out of the situation. What are your plans for these people?"  
  
"We'll either station them on Earth, giving them the choice of living on the planet or, once a suitable place has been cleared, out in space again, or crowd them on other colonies." Relena tapped the base of her champagne glass thoughtfully. "Therefore, the estimate states that one hundred thousand people are to be moved, temporarily, to other stations by the end of the year After Colony 198. Enough metal alloy and material should have been found and formed into other Colonies by then."  
  
Luivani now sneered.  
  
"All those people." She muttered. Relena nodded, her tone unusually clipped.  
  
"I know." Chea's eyes were worried.  
  
"What do they have to say about it?"  
  
"Not much. It can't be helped. The Colonies, the elderly ones, are deteriorating at a dangerous rate. I'm worried of what will happen if we push the date past the end of this year - little good can come of protest now." Relena now spread her palm flat against the table surface. "Obviously, no one's very happy. One of the Colonies - 4RT-00, I believe - was the first to carry out the Moon Farm plan successfully, and another is the oldest-known training center for pilots and soldiers in space."  
  
"I.S. GI's...." Luivani murmured, the nickname given to the said pilots and soldiers training on 4RT-00 those days.  
  
Relena asked for a coffee.  
  
"Either way, this will be a very busy year. Thank heavens I've got help..."  
  
Luivani raised her head, now tilted to the side, a crooked, thoughtful expression on her face, her bottom lip clamped between her teeth.  
  
"By the way, who was that guy backstage last week?" Relena blinked, her hands enfolded around a very warm mug.  
  
"Who?" Her mind had pulled a blank and Luivani had to think back, her mind muddled.  
  
"Dark hair, dark eyes...dark, dark, dark." Relena shrugged, tipping the mug to her lips. She set it down, staring at the table cover for a moment.  
  
Then she turned to Luivani, who now regarded her with mild, tactless curiosity.  
  
"He doesn't have dark eyes." She paused, her tone laboured. ".....They're blue."   
  
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The present season remained cold, leaving the trees naked in their skeletal state and the window panes frosted-over at the edges. Relena, dressed in a sweater, sat on a couch that sat alongside a full-view window. She stared outside, the used, worn material of her sweater all the more tangible, the warmth she felt from her toes to the roots of her hair yet more attractive and appealing. She was not outside: that cold, uncaring atmosphere could not touch it her, it simply existed shoulder-to-shoulder with the room in which she had tucked herself in an hour ago.  
  
In front of her lay the recent reports and progress summaries of Project Old Man Neutralization; the first stages of dismantling and reconstructing elderly colonies was underway and, so far, successful. No problems other than public upset had been encountered: Relena knew how these people felt. She was on their side, especially this time. They had considered burying her father on one of the sites now being destroyed. The entire project was attached to the emotion spilling over the situation.  
  
She glanced up at hearing the door to the study crack open. Rather than knocking or asking the visitor stepped in and headed for her. She greeted him with a large smile; he took her in, sitting on the couch with her knees drawn up to her chest, a few papers and a couple of pens strewn around and about, with gentle curiosity.  
  
"Heero." She gestured to the empty chairs and sofas set around the room. "Make yourself comfortable." He nodded, pulling up a padded chair; she added, "Did your..visit go well?"  
  
He shrugged. She left it at that.  
  
"Yeah." Heero glanced over the reports. "I'm going to visit the old training center, before it's destroyed."  
  
"Oh?" She picked up a pen and made a note in the margin of a standard finance report. "When?"  
  
"In a week." He nodded with his chin torwards a small graph beneath Relena's socked feet. "Transportation methods being used?"  
  
"Yes." She tugged the graph from under the growing pile of paper at her feet and read the small summary she had written at the bottom. "The more efficient way of taking care of the people from Project Neutralization is to spread them across other, available Colonies, supply them with benefits and ways of making their independence without spoiling careers - hopefully - and, later, bringing them to newly-built Colonies or finding room for them on Earth. This will take a while..." She reviewed other, more brief notes. "As for the rest of the choices...."  
  
"Have you decided on the method?"  
  
"Well, that's the most efficient way: it also would take a lot of money, a resource we're short on at the moment. The war and recent reconstruction on Earth and in space have depleted tremendous amounts of government money - much of the money wasn't even government-issue, at that." She gave an angry sigh. "We're finding ways to wittle down the expense and mold other features of the above choices into a final product. The result won't come out for another two months."  
  
"Hn." Heero leaned back into the chair and Relena stooped forward, slumping.  
  
"This is tiresome, this entire project." She said, eyes dull. After a moment, though, she went on. "Either that...or I'm tired. I can't say which anymore."  
  
Heero leaned over and picked up a cup and saucer; beside it, a small teapot.  
  
"You didn't drink everything." He observed. Relena stared at the end of the couch: it was now dark outside, the evening's light crushed by nightfall.  
  
"This has to work...what if we don't meet the deadline?"  
  
"What deadline, Relena?" Heero asked, almost impatiently: the teapot was small, meant for a single person, and the handle was cramping his hand. He poured out another cup of tea (decaf, he was sure by the smell). She shrugged.  
  
"Not really a deadline, I suppose." More of a goal. She had hoped by such and such a time, they would have a finished plan - now, it didn't seem as likely....  
  
"Don't worry, then." He handed it to her, shoving the saucer-less teacup into her palm. Relena, briefly shaken at the interruption of his hand in the middle of her thought process, gave him a small smile, taking tiny sips. She breathed out of her nose and watched the tea ripple in the teacup, eyes vacant.   
  
"Mmh."  
  
"How long have you been sitting here?" He asked, glancing around. Again she shrugged, tipping the cup to her lips.  
  
"I can't remember."  
  
Heero propped his elbows on his knees, stare digging into the carpet. There were alot of pens about the floor, and the sofa was littered with paper. Relena seemed to be sitting on the crest of a landfill. They both hazed off for a while, their minds turned off, alert guard momentarily resting. The distant chime-and-dong of a clock knocked Relena out of her reverie and she glanced hastily at her study and research material.  
  
"Oh, my." Setting the teacup on the floor she began sorting everything, grabbing up, organizing the disarray into something she would later be able to go through again. Heero watched, handing her what she needed to complete this file or other, mainly trying to keep his feet out of the way.  
  
Relena flicked open a manila folder of papers untouched and screwed-up her face in a grimace.  
  
"I forgot this." Keeping her eyes trained on the contents of the folder she reached for the teacup again, slowly testing what surface she came in contact with until her fingers met with lukewarm, thin china. Bringing that up at a tilt she turned to a different page, eyebrows at a slant, a crease forming in her forehead, the corners of her mouth jerking...  
  
What tea remained in the teacup then spilled onto her lap, splashing onto a corner of the file, making her drop both. Heero caught the teacup and picked up the packet, shaking his head while she gave a jump, shrinking back into the cushioned armrest of the couch as the stain spread over her thigh and lap.  
  
"Enough." He muttered. Taking the papers in their neat stacks under one arm and leaving the used teaware in its spot he picked Relena up by the crook of her elbow, hauling her to her feet. "Learn to quit while your ahead."  
  
Relena nearly tripped but Heero did not let her.  
  
"Aha, the secret to my success..." She murmured, the sarcasm a mild undertone to her otherwise worn voice. They proceeded in this fashion down the hall into the wide, spacious landing that opened up into the rest of the levels of the house. He stopped, stationing himself at the corner of the staircase leading up. He glanced expectantly at Relena, who took the research, reports, etc. from him.  
  
She grinned.  
  
"Thank you, Heero." She put one foot on the first step before turning. "Will you still be here in the morning? If so, then - "  
  
"I'm coming along, I already looked over the itinerary."  
  
"Oh. Good." She hugged the folders to her chest with one arm. "Goodnight, Heero."  
  
"Yeah. Goodnight."  
  
He watched her climb up the staircase, her head bent forward a little, one hand on the rail. It was well-lit upstairs - the glow coming from around the corner was a tell-tale welcome. There would still be maids, readying rooms for guests, tidying up, preparing for the next day: Relena's room had been made well in advance, she would be coming to a bed laid out for sleep, the covers folded back, the lamp on the nightstand lit low, the door to the bathroom open suggestively.  
  
At least, that's how he imagined it. Whether she had a lamp on a nighstand, or a nightstand at all, was unknown to him. The maids worked hard; he guessed they might even go so far as to lay out pajamas for her. She seemed to be babied by some of the staff: he saw her talking to them in hotels, waiting for the elevator or her car. They enjoyed it, and so did she. Either way, he never found himself ascending to the second floor of the manor. He never needed to. That was not what he was there for.  
  
She had turned the corner without looking back, the hand that had slid up the rail raking her hair back over her shoulder. She seemed rumpled.  
  
It must have been late. 


	3. Ch3 Crazy

Disclaimer: Usual applies.  
  
Here's the third installment - fondly referred to as "Crazy", or, as chapter three.  
  
**A factotum - someone who does many different jobs/a general servant  
  
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The chiming of a clock woke her up. She stripped the covers from her body, her mind already flying past the shower she needed to take, the clothes she had to dress in, the food she would eat and the car she would take to this morning's meeting. Her physical state was just past the bathroom door when her mind settled into a chair, ready and hungering for what was to come, the slender briefcase she had grown used to at her elbow.  
  
Unfortunately, that meeting was another seven and a half hours away: Relena was therefore left in a vacant, hazy mood that nearly tripped her when her feet stumbled across the bathroom rug. Even that early in the morning - 3 AM - she could hear noises from below signaling that breakfast was ready, that other people had already left their rooms and gone downstairs.  
  
Everything was still dark outside when she halfheartedly peeked past the curtains. The wane, gray light of January, mid-Winter, was nothing to look forward to, either. She could just barely discern the clouds from patches of bare sky: a few stars shone yet.  
  
Slipping on a blazer Relena stepped out of her room, shutting the door behind her as quietly as possible. The dining hall lay in the left wing of the manor; on her way she passed by a private library, a small study that permitted smoking, and the door that lead to a chain of kitchens supplying the household with meals. Once in the dining hall she was given a seat opposite her traveling companion - Heero was on his second cup of coffee by then.  
  
He greeted her with a nod. He was reading what seemed to be a newspaper of one of the larger colonies - perhaps the Xilian Star. (It was one of the three largest and most-circulated newspaper chains in space). She asked for coffee and - what were they serving for breakfast that morning?  
  
"I will get you a menu, Vice Minister."  
  
"Thank you." She played with the silverware in the maid's absence, poking the knife through the prongs of her fork. Her briefcase was usually brought into view just before leaving, handed either to a guard or the chauffeur, therefore she had little to keep her focused. At some point - after she had ordered - a section of newspaper was thrown her way.  
  
"Quit that." Heero said, tone flat, referring to the jangling of metal knife against fork made. He had not looked up, just continued reading. Relena took the section and sank into the main article - written by a J. L. Preverson. Hadn't she met him at some point?...yes, yes she had. Jee. That was his first name. She had forgotten what the L. stood for.  
  
"Hmm..." Heero looked up at her briefly as Relena read the last of the article with interest. "'Much doubt is expressed as to the authenticity of these escaped account summaries: the auditors and members of the industry's financial board, though, are adamant as to these reports' "...expressing what is true and right.." (M. Larson) while the corporation, as a whole, protests recent acts of investigation and suspicion as to their involvement in the Eve's war.' Unbelievable." Relena looked over at Heero, her eyes round. "Mariemaia's funding for the Christmas Eve war, in part, might've come from here?"  
  
"It's a possibility." Relena's shoulders drooped.  
  
"And Mr. Larson is the corporations CFO, correct?" Heero nodded. Relena set her plate aside to continue reading, the notion that Heero had purposely set that article under her nose in the background of her brain, overshadowed by this surprise.  
  
The corporation, Exalcraft by name, existed through the energy produced produced in a power plant. It was stationed on a section of the moon and almost completely untouched by government rule until recently: its distance from any sort of populized area prevented much unwanted attention on the business' part, allowing it to monopolize - the war of AC 195 changed that.  
  
(At this point, a satisfied grumble left her throat - a hand went up and settled at the hollow her collar bone created).  
  
The type of energy the plant produced - doled out once refined and tuned by the corporation, of course - was rare, as the plant had been an experimental attempt from the get-go. Only in the last fifty years was it used to make a real profit, the research and lab having existed twice as long as that by then. The energy was efficient, the resources abundant and the making of it cheap to the firm. Of late it had been given the name 'retred-trash'.  
  
("Tea, Ms. Vice Minister?").  
  
("Mmh?").  
  
This referred to the problematic reality of dumps and other areas where trash was gathered to be paid attention to at a later date. Even with the steps made by science and medicine the pollution resulting of these dumps had become alarming.  
  
Exalcraft used the contents of the dumps on earth - 'trash' that, in some cases, had been around for many decades, decomposing into a fine, sooty, stinking mass - to create the energy 'retred-trash'. The nature-friendly chemical produced had paid itself off many times over in the time it had been made.  
  
("Would you like tea, Miss?").  
  
("Oh....sure, thank you.").  
  
Unfortunately, the success of this business and their hold on it had given the heads of the corporation much unnecessary confidence, as was apparent in the accusation that they had a hand in helping Dekim Barton's quick rise to fame. Since the entire operation under Dekim Barton and Mariemaia had been planned since before the Gundams were made, Relena guessed it possible Exalcraft had been helping the entire time.  
  
"Eat." Heero commanded. Relena reached for her fork and nearly stabbed her finger on one of the prongs. She glanced at him over the top of the newspaper, raised an eyebrow, and took a quick bite of food while turning the page, mumbling inbetween bites. It was a lengthy article and took all of breakfast to finish, leaving her wide-eyed and quiet.  
  
The day had quickly progressed while the household awakened, the stars having once more disappeared in the coming gray. A coat was offered her, the used dishes carried off while she slid into it, the said suitcase brought into being and given to the chauffeur. Heero climbed into the car with her and they enjoyed a quiet drive to the nearby strip of land acting as a small airport run by a single jet. Already wind made Relena shudder and she turned the collar up on her coat.  
  
She didn't remember the ride very well as she slept through it. Heero, sitting in the isle across, stopped the stewardess on board from bothering her when she made her rounds.   
  
"What?" Heero leaned back in the seat, his mind off the flight taking him to Colony Haligon-9 and back into Duo's small, somewhat unkept house.  
  
"How is it that I'm so easy to find?" Duo sat down next to him; Hilde stood outside in the yard, surveying a new pile of junk someone had dropped off last night. "Trowa's trail stops directly after that whole affair last Christmas and Wufei - "  
  
" - Now works with Sally as a Preventers agent." Duo's eyebrows jerked.  
  
"What? Since when?" Heero shrugged and Duo leaned back, stupified.  
  
"Alright. I mean, Trowa's disappearance is normal, but - that's not like Quatre to do." They each shared a moment of quiet wonder before Heero cleared his throat, lightly, and took another sip of his coffee.  
  
"Hm."  
  
"So why am I so easy to find again?" Duo grumped. "I did a pretty clean job of wiping the trail."  
  
"No one else's scrap pile business is named after a church, Duo." Duo returned to his former blank, early-morning stare, the tone of his voice wry.  
  
"Smartass."  
  
The same lady in uniform came by again - this time offering a small variety of chocolate, tea-bags they did not serve customers on board and non-slip slippers. Even the price for tea had gone up - several miles of land had been stripped of the nutrients needed to support crops since the war had used most unoccupied land as a temporary dump.   
  
Although the entire war had been dealt with through machinery - mobil dolls and suits making up the majority of said machinery - chemical pollutants and general junk had crowded spaces once fertile and filled with plant growth.  
  
"Water, thanks." The stewardess nodded and left.  
  
This act of littering effectively crowded out small towns; people had swarmed into nearby urban areas and were only recently able of pulling out and repairing the damage done to their homes. But the cities suffered from this mass rush of people as well; desperation resulted in legal difficulties and conflicts concerning water supplies, sanitation and rent space arose.   
  
The war occupied everyone's minds, and the privacy it was sometimes dealt with - the number of casualties often unreported, activities and battles held in Space kept quiet - unnerved those involved (namely everyone). But most of all -   
  
- No one knew what side to take. This was the most controversial war in man kind's history: there was no clear bad guy. Everyone wanted peace in some way, shape or form - although the means of achieving it differed from person to person. Each side fighting the war had lovely, very compelling issues to fight for.   
  
That these issues were sometimes only a mask did not matter since they were what persuaded the public. Soldiers seemed to have become Knights with a Knight's code of chivalry, with the possible forked tongue peeking out of a helmet every so often, politicians were at once Gods and buzzards in one, police forces differed only in that they had license to do what they did.  
  
The shuttled dipped suddenly and Heero heard noises behind him. This caused him to smirk - inwardly.  
  
Relena shifted in her sleep and the blanket over her lap slipped, making her fumble for it in a doze. Her associates were generally silent and a light murmur of conversation reached them from the back where the stewardess chatted on her cell. Earth decreased in size as they neared the Colonies, a portion of it sunk in shadow.   
  
The shadowed portion played on Heero's mind - it was always the part that seemed to be the resting place for dead souls. From space, especially in the dizzying, adrenalin-pumped moments before landing, when one's spacecraft was just feeling the pull of that shell of gravity, the section was a brooding, distant threat - there one moment and gone the next as gravity's hold tightened, yanking, the shadowy section pulling its claws back as proof that one was not yet its citizen...  
  
Relena's mind, affected by the glare of sunlight on a sea of clouds back on earth and sleeping against the hard part of the window frame, traveled between episodes in her life - far-fetched, at random, meaningless to what conscious mentality kept her from deep, undisturbed sleep.   
  
She had traveled so often on such shuttle flights that unless the landing was turbulent she didn't notice anything. Had she been able to rewind her dream, though, what sound she would be able to catch would have been oddly reminiscent of the stewardess' chatter...  
  
The small colony was crowded with newcomers - immigrants from elder colonies scheduled for destruction or reconstruction. The small procession consisting of Relena and her associates stood out amongst everyone else but had only a small run-in with the paparazzi. Heero had quit their company at leaving the shuttle - he did agree to meet her once they were situated, though. On the way to the hotel, they witnessed a remarkable occurance: it rained.  
  
Rain on a colony had earnest meaning - fires in residential or industrial sectors, an epidemic, plugged sewers. Due to the value of water in a habitat originally without, colonies and other-planet inhabitants held strict laws over water reserves. Through the discovery of how to join hydrogen molecules with the needed oxygen molecule in order to 'make' water (aided, for the most part, by Exalcraft) it was possible to create reservoirs without infringing on Earth's water supply, generous yet finite - albeit with restrictions. Offense concerning these water supplies were dealt with little grace. Also, the act of letting rain fall was a decision made by the senior ranking official, none other.  
  
"Oh, my...." Relena hadn't heard herself murmur this form of appreciation as she was still looking around her, through the fine, wet sheen around them.   
  
It was beautiful - through the sheen of rain Relena saw out into space as though the glass shell separating them from that desolate vacuum were crying. Ms. Telapen, her assistant, reached out from her umbrella, the rain wetting her hand. She stuck her head further out and looked up - the pipes and faucets loosing the water over the colony were too far up, she didn't see much.  
  
As their stay was short Relena shared a generous suite with Ms. Telapen, most often referred to as Rachael. Rachael was easy going but quiet, given to small ramblings and stammering as her mind usually lept ahead of her mouth. Relena left her in the suite to walk around, feeling the usual restlessness experienced after a shuttle flight. As she was too young to go into the bar, even with the Colonies' eighteen-year-old drinking age law, she ended up ambling into one of the smaller ballrooms, empty for the time.  
  
One of the windows opened up into a startling view of the moon. Its pockmarked face was anything but the singing, moaning moon of earth - here it was quiet, sexless, lacking the allure it had always seemed to have. Here, the Lady of the Moon was a hag with hunched shoulders, her back always turned on staring eyes. You are Unwelcome, it seemed to say. The hag scrutinized the figure of Relena, by those large bay windows, over her shoulder - and sneered.  
  
The moment passed; Relena went upstairs a while later, ready as ever for rest.  
  
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Dorothy, rifle in hand, marched towards the green presently acting as the shooting range, a harried desk clerk in tow.  
  
"Ms. Catalonia, why - " He tripped over some upturned grass. " - not inside?" She didn't answer, rather setting down a bowl of bullets on an old stump and taking a position. The target was in a general, oblong shape standing at 5'8. Three bullet holes had already appeared along the edge.  
  
The clerk took up a position next to her and, unsettled, nervous, began the weekly report she had requested. His reedy voice, even in the open of the country on which the Catalonian estate was founded, barely reached her. She popped a couple of bullets in and assured that the gun was in good health.  
  
"The, um, the accounts are holding up well, although the, um, stocks could be better - " POW. She cleaned it one final time. " - we suggest switching from Mannim Lumber to Nexale Timber Works while keeping to the Exalcraft as that should shoon - " POW. " - in value. As for reparations on the estate, perhaps lumber from Nexale might be a good idea? - " POW POW. " - been graced with a reputation of reliability and quality, and, um, works well with ebony as well as cherry, as you desired - " POW. " - although rather new, yes, rough at the edges...." POW. She paused to reload and he faltered.  
  
"Is that, err, necessary, Ms. Catalonia?" Rather than answering Dorothy stared at the bullet holes she had placed in the target. The clerk gave up at her despondency and continued with what Dorothy admitted to herself as being a solid, thorough report. The man was being paid well for the work, though, and she felt their conversation should be restricted to the things that mattered - just what she was hiring him for.  
  
The clerk rubbed his ears, the smell of gunpowder and other residue felt to be staining his clothes. He brushed at the leg of his pants, one more page to be read in the report before he could - POW.  
  
He wanted earplugs.  
  
Dorothy scrutinized the target with the severity of the Supreme Justice, concluding that her aim needed work. She set the rifle with new bullets and placed her feet farther apart, assuring herself that she was well grounded.  
  
The next round faired better. By that time, Robbins had finished, the report dangling from his tight grip at the hip. She glanced over, her cool stair riveting and crisp for the first time since he had been ushered into her company.  
  
"Very good. Continue to keep me posted." He waited; she turned, fired the next shot. After a while, he balked, a feeling of reproach welling up in his gut.  
  
"Is that all?" He asked, his tone incredulous. Dorothy's rifle dropped and her head swerved in his direction - You're still here?  
  
"Yes." She said bluntly, her stare unwelcome. He nearly let loose the guffaw predatoriously gathering to pounce out at the back of his throat.  
  
"But - don't you have questions?" He pulled at his tie. "I mean, Exalcraft - shaky, risky, but worth the risk, right?" Her stare become forced.  
  
"I have you to tell me this information and I base my opinion on that. It's what I pay you for."  
  
"Yes, yes I know, but do you agree?"  
  
"Yes, I do."  
  
"What about the, the, the Holding account? The late Duke - "  
  
The butt of the rifle dented the ground in its fall and the clerk flinched.  
  
"Yes, I'm aware of what my Grandfather said in his will." She didn't trouble him with her stare anymore, rather focusing on the sky above the target, mouth turned up without mirth or cheer. "He stated he wanted the Holding account in place. For the time, I want it there, " She sighed. ", But if it becomes a concern in the near future, I expect you tell me of it."  
  
The clerk's eyes bugged out and she took aim.  
  
POW.  
  
Dorothy felt satisfied. The clerk looked less so, leaning more towards mystified than anything.  
  
"Don't - but your opinion!" He glanced down at the report, "You'll just take my word?"  
  
"Of course not, but this time, I agree with you." POW. "Anything else?"  
  
"No, I guess..."  
  
"Good. Leave the report here - SEY-LENE! - and my maid will walk you to the door." She held a hand out, fingers crimped. "Thank you very much, I will see you next week." He regarded her hand with mistrust but shook it anyways as an unwilling worker must for their boss. A woman in her mid-forties, a native of the country, came hopping to take Robbins out. Selene, pulling stray hairs back behind her ears, led the confused clerk from the green and her employer, the sound of gunshots following after them.  
  
"Pardon me, but is she always like this?" (A ring of gunshots sounded and he involuntarily jumped).  
  
"Mostly."  
  
"Mostly?"  
  
"She's like all her fam'ly - craz'd." The clerk glanced over his shoulder and his steps faltered.  
  
"Crazed? All of them are that arrogant?"  
  
"So I've heard. This is the first time I work here." She joined Robbins in staring at the smaller figure of Dorothy, the butt of the gun at her shoulder, her stance solid. "She don't know different. I hear when her family was worse."  
  
"Worse? Lord." The sun glinted off her blonde hair, turning it a blinding white.  
  
"She's always alone here. No visitors." They started back up again, towards the manor.  
  
"Who'd want to?" He huffed, unsure if Dorothy might have heard even at such a distance. The woman at his side shrugged; Dorothy was her well-paying employer, one that intimidated, but did not interest her. One could not get heavily involved with these families - they could suck one down into the myre in which they toiled, day after day. Craziness was infectious, and their type one of the more contagious kinds.  
  
Noon was at its peak. Sweat began to roll down her forehead, her skin gaining a red, blotchy appearance. The full uniform she had on, one meant for the activity of practice shooting, began to weigh down on her. Hair stuck to the back of her neck, her palms felt itchy, her toes liquidy. But her aim was getting better..  
  
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Just a few comments here - thank you, everyone, for reading and reviewing - I'm enjoying writing again immensely. Whenever I have to switch from Relena to Dorothy, all the reasons I so happily write Relena's character have to be killed off until I can use them again - because Dorothy is...I don't know, she's the antichrist, she's everything I'd probably distrust (at first) or dislike (at first) in a person. But, g'dammit, she's a helluvalotta fun to write!  
  
Ahem, so sorry, li'l tangent there.....thank you, anyways, always! 


	4. Ch4 The Wheezer

Disclaimer: Usual applies.  
  
Thanks to all who've read and reviewed - I hope you enjoy this chapter! (Here goes...)  
  
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Rachael woke her up, her grip soft as she shook Relena's arm. Relena turned her face into the pillow but muttered, in a clear voice, that she was awake. Their joined suite, roomy, open, smelled like shoe polish and hair in heating-curlers. Blinking grains of sleep-dried tears from her eyes Relena shuffled into the bathroom - Rachael, while waiting for her hair to dry in the curlers, sat at the television, engrossed in the weather report. It resembled something from Pleasantville, mentioning yesterday's "...beautiful, rare rain!..." and the new day's warm, dry conditions.  
  
The bathroom was still warm and the mirror fogged over from Rachael's shower. Relena stripped, ran her hands through her hair, turned the faucet on. The water came out lukewarm at first but she stepped in rather than wait for it to adjust. With water pouring down on her she stretched, yawned, tasting her breath and wanting for a toothbrush. The shower curtain was clear and she could watch the clock stationed across from her, over the sink, beside the mirror - 5:53 in the AM.  
  
It felt earlier.  
  
After the shower she dressed and otherwise readied herself; Rachael and she left the suite at 6:54 AM, arriving six minutes early for breakfast. The other members of their party were to arrive later that morning; for the time being, Relena cleared her mind with the local paper over a bowl of fruit, grown on a moonfarm a few kilometers from the colony. Due to jetlag she cared little for eating but the likelihood of a late lunch was great. The first sponsored party was that evening; she would have to still be able to stand on her feet by then.  
  
She asked the waiter for her stationary and a good pen: mail left at 8 AM and she had a few things to take care of. With regret she started a letter to Pagan - the letter was added to the rest of the outgoing mail, brought to the northern end of the colony and transported by bulk shuttle to Earth. The letter went through South Africa, Neo-Egypt and New Turkey before reaching Cinq's border: it took two more days before it finally rested in the worn hand of her butler, chauffeur, guardian, confidante and friend, the embodiment of what her father could not be, a constant companion.  
  
Inbetween 'talks', a lunch 'date', a mid-afternoon rendezvous, and early-evening conference, Relena found the colony a pleasant surprise: people smiled, the layout of the streets was organized, patterned like a grid, and great efforts were made to keep the entirety of it sanitary. Everything was new in comparison to the rest of the colonies - the oldest building couldn't have been much more than five years old. At one point, she could see the moonfarm from which her breakfast had come - a thin, silver bow of metal, the half-sphere of its protective glass shell glinting from time to time but otherwise invisible. A thin layer of bumpy green ran over the surface of the silver; crops.  
  
At six o'clock, after the early-evening conference with Schmiffon, Heero appeared. He materialized at her elbow once everyone's backs were turned: flinching at his touch when he prodded her arm, she glanced over her shoulder and grinned.  
  
"Heero." He nodded a greeting. Dressed as the natives were he sported a laptop at the hip, hung from around his shoulders on a wide strap, a hat creating a belt of shadow over his eyes. The party continued to move on, towards the hotel again to change for the evening's activity. Relena and Heero formed the last of the line.  
  
"Were you working, Heero?" She tilted her head, looking up at him.  
  
"Yeah." She turned her eyes to the back of the head of Schmiffon, a few feet in front of her, his bald spot glaring with the sunlight it attracted.  
  
"This colony is so friendly. We weren't even required to have two guard watches with us." She glanced up a towering building in pink mekamarble, craning her head back to see the top. "And attractive. There is open space to be used up, too - and more to be added on!"  
  
"Do you plan to put refugees here?"  
  
"I hope so." They walked on in silence for a few minutes, Heero's sneakers making a 'lap-lap' type of noise alongside the sharp Clicks of Relena's heels. They passed a small plot of land - to be made into a park, as the sign said - in which several people were laying down grass. The hotel was close by, just ahead, really, as they could already see it.  
  
Heero paused, his gaze traveling across the street. Their steps slowed and they became further separated from Relena's group.  
  
"I think I should go now."  
  
Relena's steps slowed.  
  
"Why?"  
  
"You don't need me right now." Relena pulled back, faltering. The party flit through her and she groped for the nearest thing that came to mind.  
  
"But - you could come." She blurted. Heero was at the curb and had almost stepped off: he now raised an eyebrow at her, skeptical.  
  
"No." Relena glanced down, her eyebrows pulling together.  
  
"Well. Alright. I'm sorry, that wasn't necessary. I shouldn't have asked." She inhaled, looked up and nodded. Heero turned away again.  
  
"Have a good night, Heero." She called after him.  
  
"Yeah." He stepped off the curb then faltered before adding, "You, too..." Heero crossed the street and she hurried to catch up with the group. Rachael, originally at the head of the procession, had fallen back, a portable vidlink in one hand. She gestured to Relena, clamoring for her attention. Shoulder-to-shoulder they opened the message and a bellman appeared on the screen, reminding them of the time, place and dress code for the upcoming event. Rachael was glowing when Relena cut the call.  
  
"Are you excited for this evening?" Relena asked, mildly suprised but glad. Rachael shrugged.  
  
"I've never been to a formal before." Relena grasped her hand and squeezed it quickly before they fell in step with everyone else at the entrance to the hotel.  
  
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The next day, after a continuous course of events and one charity luncheon held at the aforementioned-moonfarm, the small ballroom that Relena had visited was filled with her associates. A bartender was busy with drinks in the left wing, orders mainly consisting of martinis and flutes of champagne. A saxophone player and a man at a small piano formed the background music to the party. No one danced. People traveled from one tightly-bunched group to the next; this was an occation in which not to discuss things of relative importance to any descriptive degree yet neither to turn to anything considered less than modern, up-to-date and aristocratic.  
  
To a less contradicting crowd this was a 'Fishbowl of hypocrites.'  
  
And they offered no chairs for anyone below the age of fifty-five with a sound heart. Therefore, Relena and Rachael stood shoulder to shoulder through most of it - they encountered, one by one, each of the guests, naturally; Luivani came by several times, the third with Chea on her arm, and Schmiffon seemed to be innerly flailing at the effort of socializing with people and found his way to them at least twice.  
  
Rachael prodded Relena in the side, gently, and pointed with a small thrust of her chin at someone.  
  
"Who's she?" Relena craned her neck - discretely.  
  
"Mayor of Ginesburg, I believe."  
  
"Oh." A moment passed and it was Relena's turn to jab the other in the side.  
  
"The bald one over there - no, the other - yes, he's the Chief of the Brazilian navel forces. Although, I'm not sure why he's made an appearance.."  
  
"Hm. Handsome."  
  
"Not very fluent in English - see, that's his translator." Rachael giggled.  
  
"They look buddy-buddy." Relena glanced around once more.  
  
"And that woman, in the blue formal? She's an advocate for the French propaganda - formerly an orderly of Oz, as much of France was until last year."  
  
"Pretty."  
  
"Mmh-hm...oh, and those men? With Luivani? President Buchenheimer, Vice-President Lauer, Marianne Funkels (author of "Ich sterbe Niemals" or, "I never die") and Head of Treasury Lars Adlerheim." Rachael nodded and they stared at the group, engrossed in a rapidly-exchanged conversation. Nudging Relena with her palm Rachael pointed her chin over to them.  
  
"Who's the lady with Ms. Luivani?" Relena ran her tongue over her teeth before responding.  
  
"Her companion, I believe."  
  
"Oh." Relena continued.  
  
"Chea Giole, if I remember correctly. She's really very sweet."  
  
"Oh. Hm." Relena turned to Rachael; she was drinking the last of the champagne but her eyes remained on the pair. After a moment, Chea looked up, her mass of neat curls bouncing at the action; smiling, she winked at Relena. Relena gave her a wave in welcome, smiling just as widely.  
  
She gave a start when someone tapped her, hard, on the shoulder. Turning around, she faced the offender with as much as wonder as surprise at finding who it was.  
  
"Ambassador Buckler!" Her gasp neatly collided with a cough resulting over a large gulp of champagne, causing her to hack lightly into the palm of cupped hand while Rachael waited for introductions to be made, the creased, heavy-jowled face a familiar one from photos but otherwise unknown to her. Patting her employer on the back she assured herself that Relena did not need to excuse herself: the coughing subsided and Relena straightened once more. Without offering her hand, she greeted the Ambassador.  
  
Rachael, on the other hand, took the opportunity to extend a hand - as she had done, repeatedly, the entire evening like a well-trained puppy - in an offer to shake, already forming a plan of action in which she could semi-dazzle the heavy man with her well-informed conversational skills.  
  
The Ambassador flinched, pulling both hands - neither one having been extended - at his back when he saw the one lonely palm advancing towards him and, lunging backwards, caused the upset of a tray of empty glasses a waiter had been bringing to the kitchens. Grasping for something at his side, the Ambassador seemed both exasperated and desperate: a leathery little man standing behind him held up open pack of handwipes of which he took several and began using on his hands, neck, and forehead. Little droplets of perspiration had gathered in the seconds Rachael had reached for his hand.  
  
In puzzled embarrassment Rachael hid her hands in the pockets of her blazer, hooking her thumbs on the outer flap in a self-conscious manner she never would have attempted among such company otherwise. Glancing at Relena she let her hair fall forward, eyes wide and bright. She was now distraught, much of her former eagerness sapped from her at the Ambassador's reaction to her greeting.  
  
Relena took her by the elbow as though to steady the rocky feelings bounding in her assistant and smiled, a bit faintly but on the whole pleasantly enough.  
  
"Ambassador Buckler, this is my assistant, Rachael Telapen. She's with me on the Colony Reconstruction campaign." He snorted, yet wiping his hands a third time over with the 'wipes.  
  
"Ha, campaign - charade, I'm sure is the term there." Relena tilted her head in feigned amusement, her hands still encircling Rachael's forearm.  
  
"We can only hope for your support, Ambassador."  
  
"We'll see." He handed the rest of the handwipes to the leathery man before continuing, "By the way, Ms. Dorlian, Ms. Telapen, this is Phillips Reynold, my American righthand." Reynolds bowed from the waist, muttering a quick, clear "Charmed." Apparently, his service with the Ambassador had taught against the usual handshake in a greeting; he talked little but seemed busy with his keen little eyes dissecting the conversation as it followed.  
  
"I hope you're enjoying your stay on the colony, Ambassador?" Relena offered.  
  
"Harrumph." Grunt, grunt. "Business remains business under the most..pleasant of circumstances."  
  
"True. What drives you to attendance, Ambassador, if I may ask?"  
  
"Your little project, Vice Minister." The expression he then took on was a mixture of smug knowing and irritation. "What you're proposing is radical enough to act as a smokescreen but I am here to find if the cause is really worth the trouble. And the money." Rachael licked her lips tentatively.  
  
"Actually, the idea is not so radical, but mainly - "  
  
"Finances." He finished, not looking in her direction.  
  
"Er..yes." Rachael clamped her mouth shut. The ambassador's head bent forward, nearly tucking his chin in the flaps of skin escaping his collar.  
  
"Your idealism and views are charming, Ms. Dorlian, but how do you propose we come up with the amount needed to not only reconstruct and rebuild aged space colonies, but transfer their masses to temporary holds while the action takes place? No such funding exists anywhere! I'm certainly not going to empty my pockets for it - and I can't see even the vast Peacecraft fortune capable of handling all the demands of such a project." He curled his hands in each other, palm to palm. "What shall you suggest? Raised taxes? Sponsorships? A new currency?"  
  
"All of your questions will be answered tomorrow, if you are to attend the Staffing Conference."  
  
"I will be present, if only to see your little project - fail - in its infancy." Relena's smile was light and fixed.  
  
"I shall be grateful for your presence, Ambassador Buckler." He regarded her, eyes twinkling but expressionless, his jowles, mouth and nose seeming too heavy for his face and drooping.  
  
"Always landing on your feet, aren't you, Vice Minister?"  
  
"I have little choice on such uneven ground, Ambassador." He gave a coughing sputter that seemed a laugh before turning slitted eyes to Rachael.  
  
"Inform her well, Vice Minister."  
  
"Of course. I already count on her abilities more than I can say."  
  
"Harrumph. Tomorrow, then?" Relena nodded. He turned away and rode the waves of disapproving glances to the next group, one already stiffening body of four people, one of which was Luivani. Relena, though, turned her back to them and half-dragged Rachael to a window with a little more privacy near the curtains.  
  
"What do you know of Ambassador Ferdinand Buckler, Rachael?" She asked hurriedly.  
  
"Australian citizen, Head of Australian Government Finance, introduced the Bagel-LaVon Act eight years ago."  
  
"Good. Keep in mind he's obsessive-compulsive and a critique of any and everyone's workmanship, including his own. Brusque but well-serving - he's like that all the time." She nodded.  
  
"I can't remember his aquiring an American assistant into his office, though." She sounded subdued but her mien was of one not as disheartened as before.  
  
"He must be new. Could you find some information on him?"  
  
"Of course."  
  
"Thank you." They turned back to the room. "Back to the party..." 


	5. Ch5 One fat twowheeler

Disclaimer: Usual applies.  
  
Have fun, I hope you enjoy this. Commentary appreciated.  
  
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"Oh! Ow!" Relena held a hand to her mouth. "Ow!"  
  
"What?"  
  
"That cut, behind my tooth?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"I forgot about it and bit into a lemon." She grimaced at the combined blood-metal-sour taste in her mouth and Rachael laughed.  
  
"Why do you like those?"  
  
"I had a bad taste in my mouth."  
  
"Oh, blood.."  
  
"What?"  
  
"It's showing...here, just take a napkin."  
  
"What do you mean, it's showing?"  
  
"Showing between your teeth, blood."  
  
"Oh! I'm sorry, excuse me - "  
  
"It's only mildly disgusting, don't worry."  
  
"Why now, we're on in ten minutes.."  
  
"You should sit next to Ambassador Buckler and grin, really widely." Rachael said. Relena chuckled behind her palm, now covering her mouth while she dabbed at the gum with the other hand.  
  
"He would flee the colony!"  
  
"Or faint."  
  
"You can have the rest of the lemon."  
  
"Why would I want to?"  
  
"'Clears your head." Rachael fanned herself with her hand and glanced up and down the corridor.  
  
"I'm remarkably clear-headed as it is - out of sheer nervousness!"  
  
"Just hand me the prints and we'll be fine."  
  
"This will be a very long hour."  
  
"In which we shall rally all the support we need." Rachael let her breath out quickly and sucked it back in an attempt to calm her rapid breathing.  
  
"The Ambassador's opposition might make it difficult, though." She managed between deep breaths of stale air.  
  
"He'll come around with a little work." Rachael regarded her employer coyly.  
  
"You're very confident this morning."  
  
"Don't worry, I'm crossing my fingers as well." Pause. "Actually, I'll have the rest of the that lemon - "  
  
"Why?"  
  
"It might numb the taste in my mouth for a while."  
  
"Oh.."  
  
The pristine hall was deserted but for the warm bodies of Rachael Telapen and Relena Darlian, sitting an arms-length away from each other in chairs on either side of a door leading to the conference room. As they were earlier than the rest of the party they had decided to wait there for the others to join them, drinking coffee in the spare time they had. Relena was confident, even a bit overly so - she had talked with everyone individually at some point and they all agreed, the plan she had suggested was, if more expensive, most reasonable and agreeable. What else was warranted to ensure success from all sides? Ambassador Buckley presented an obstacle but she had ways, oh, she had very persuasive ways.  
  
Rachael, on the other hand, felt her own confidence - derived from the light glow Relena emitted through her pores - ebbing back and forth as the minutes ticked by. She expected to hear the beat of shoes on the floor echo their way to them long before people materiliazed in the hall - she expected laser pointers and pens and arguing, tensed voices performing a formalized version of the dozens - to hear Relena's voice provide the assurance and information the group needed to make a decision - heavens, was she out of coffee already?!  
  
The tapping of Relena's foot against the floor was the only beat of its kind then not racing furiously: Rachael's being and body pulsed with adrenalin while Relena's own heart sped up at thinking the project finally underway. So much work and planning, so many hopes rode on it - tap, tap, tap - she hadn't forgotten anything, she would've felt it if she had - tap, tap - maybe coffee hadn't been so good an idea -   
  
Tap, tap, tap.  
  
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Heero tapped his fingers against the counter top while he waited, idly gazing about his self in the clerk's absence. Minutes later that same clerk introduced Heero to his lunch - a very tall cup of coffee. After leaving the establishment - a small coffee house wedged between a bank and a moonfarm equipment retail store - he wandered down the street to the north, intending on reaching a manmade peak of earth and rock looking out over earth and the rest of the colony, called Brightstone for the tendency of light to reflect off the glassy rock much of the day.  
  
The angry growl of an abused motor issued from up the street. Turning, Heero just saw the shiny crown of a helmet bouncing off the sides of a building as the rider of a motorcycle attempted at getting back on the seat. Nonetheless, the beast of a machine managed to unseat its rider once more as he - an amateur - attacked the handgrips rather than coax them into slowing the motorcycle down. It was a bulky two-seater, louder than a group of mastiffs and just as unwieldy. It somehow balanced bravely without the help of the its owner and wobbled up the street at an increasing speed. The amateur, meanwhile, warned those on foot with wild screams vouching for the machine's bloodthirsty nature, gesturing for them to spring smartly out of the way before being mowed down.  
  
His reaction was instantaneous as he pivoted, the coffee slung in a far arc across the street. A familiar thrum of electricity ran through his joints and legs, puffing up his lungs to their maximum size. Before the rider was entirely unseated he managed to be quite close by - by the time the machine had escaped and fleed the scene Heero was only a few feet behind it. He outraced a slower car and dodged a (Idiot!) child grabbing his balloon from the gutter - the motorcycle sped up somehow, wobbling dangerously, and Heero raced after it -   
  
- traffic thinned, some drivers turning into spectators as they climbed out of their forsaken vehicles to watch the street show. Nonetheless Heero had to swerve on foot to keep from being bumped off his path by other, yet-moving cars - ahead of the fleeing motorcycle rode a large-bodied truck, its driver aware of something going on behind him but incapable of seeing anything properly. Heero strained to reach the - that goddamned, fu -   
  
Swinging himself up onto the second seat, the motorcycle swerved, low to the ground, nearly on its side, to the left and he quickly set it right. Unfeeling to the ache an unbalanced landing lent his groin he flexed the handlebars, calming the motor and gaining control over it. Slipping into the first seat, he found the balance - the motor rumbled at being reigned in but turned, coming to a stop at the curb moments later. Glancing up Heero saw the - grateful - driver coming towards him and flexed the handlebars, listening to the motor's renewed, suggestive rumble. The amateur driver approached him with caution that dragged at his formerly happy, relieved step as he came close. Heero stared into his face without moving from the machine, propping it up with both feet on the ground. Unwillingly returning the reproachful stare of the young man the driver held out a hand in greeting. Heero's eyes considered the gesture but he made no move to respond to it.  
  
"Uh...thanks. Thanks a lot, actually. I can't believe it - " The driver hissed as he inhaled between his teeth. "That was just so cool." Pulling his hand back, he added, "I...well, again, thanks. If you...y'know, you need anything that...I can help with, uh..." Heero released the handlebars and, leaning forward, propped his elbows up on them. His glare caused the driver to stutter a little more before he decided to speak up.  
  
"How much do you want for it?" The driver's eyes popped and his fingers clenched.  
  
"What?! I never - "  
  
"How. Much." The driver looked nothing less than aghast.  
  
"Hey!" The driver glanced over his shoulder at the speaker and spied a crippled old man with a cane on the other sidewalk. "You louse! I'm reporting you, you ass!"  
  
"What?!"  
  
"You think you can rule the streets - "  
  
"Wait, wait just a second, hold - "  
  
" - too inexperienced, your ass is fried! - "  
  
" - I know, I mean - "  
  
"What the hell am I, furniture?!!" The old man waved with a cane and batted at someone in passing who happened to be in a wheelchair. "What are we to you? Fuck off, and fuck you! I hope you choke."  
  
"Wait!" The driver brought his eyes to the front wheel of the machine. "I was going to report - this..."  
  
"I asked you, how much." Heero managed once more. The driver lifted exasperated, frustrated eyes to his face, shoulders slumped.  
  
"I dunno, I think...it's antique, about - "  
  
"1.800,00'?"  
  
"Yeah, about." Then he shook his head, clearing it. "Hold on! I don't want to sell!"  
  
"They're going to take your license and this thing."  
  
"Yeah, fine, but - "  
  
"You're no good." Heero felt for his wallet at his back pocket, staring the man down all the while. "Terrible balance. You'll never learn." The man bristled and wilted at the same time.  
  
"I won't? How - "  
  
"Here." Heero handed him the money. "Now give me the key - here's were you can reach me for transfer of ownership.."  
  
The amateur driver took the money but never closed his fingers around it. After a few moments of wordless despair and an increasing sense of self-doubt he handed Heero the keys, taking, in turn, the information Heero had scrawled on the back of a local hotel's business card. His eyes took in the whole picture - the challenge written across the young man's face, his possessive hold on his late father's vehicle, a classic of the bulky sort, the keys already in the youth's hand and the air of loss that surrounded him but not the other. Sighing, he took off his helmet.  
  
"Yeah. I'll call you." His voice lacked conviction, though in the end, he would stay true to his word. He handed Heero the helmet and stepped back while the young man trod on the gas pedal once, twice - and set off down the street, the helmet dangling by its strap on a rack fixed to the back of the vehicle. The man, now without transportation, glanced around - and headed for the closest bus stop. He felt utterly defeated and dragged his feet - with a groan, he remembered the old man's threat from before and doubted the day could have gotten worser.  
  
Heero continued on to Brightstone as planned, only he went by the motorist's path rather than up the stairs leading to the tallest point. The different direction offered an entirely opposing view in comparison to that of the walkers', as Heero found in greatly detailed display at his side while he drove. Trees that had been recently planted grew below the path, covering that side of the steep hill in a scraggly fashion. The neighborhood of newly-erected buildings and residential areas had yet to increase in size and the sun shone callously down on the lone rider as he passed it by, having never before seen that section of the colony from that point of view.  
  
At reaching the near-top - motor vehicles being prohibited from accessing that part of Brightstone - he stopped the machine and the rumble of the motor died quickly. Leaning against it he folded his arms over his chest, watching thoughtfully, almost vacantly as the landscape changed with the sun overriding the curved side of the Earth. To keep a colony from wandering too far into space it was set in some planet's - or moon's, depending on the size and weight - gravitational pull, where it circled the planet in a planned orbit. In this way, colonial citizens experienced a setting and rising sun, much as their Earth-bound counterparts, but in a different way - the sun had to first escape the bulk of Earth in order to reach the colony in the first place.  
  
Heero amused himself with the mathematical equation needed to find an appropriate orbit for a mid-sized, lightweight colony with large import/export harbors and shuttles. The colony farthest from Earth so far was in an orbit circling Mars, many of its citizens brought to live there for the newly-erected Mars Operation. As Mars had a gravitational pull roughly the strength of Earth's a mid-sized colony would do well there - as would the moon, unless the colony was to have a large population of citizens.......  
  
Brighstone was already heavily populated by visitors - however, as the motorists' path was used rarely Heero was relatively secluded and only heard the din if he focused on it. Absently scratching his chin he swept his eyes over the uneven city spread out beneath him - this section was older by a few years than the one he passed on the way, many of the buildings familiar to him through much of the wandering he had done since alighting on the colony with the rest of Relena's troupe. The optimistic nature of the colony - not unheard of on space colonies, whose laws tended to restrict criminal behavior more and punished the same more severely than on Earth - left a person the rare delight of wandering streets at night safely. Heero's nocturnal habits, uninhibited even when he stayed in some of Earth's busiest port cities, had branched out so that he only left himself enough time to sleep for a few scant hours.  
  
A grumbling sigh disturbed the quiet he surrounded himself with - what was he to do with this vehicle? He hadn't thought his actions through entirely, having being outraged that such an amateur cyclist took on a heavy motorcycle with so little regard for pedestrians and fellow motorists. Losing his license was at the bottom of his worries - he would have killed someone. Heero had just prevented a might-be felon from entering prison. Regret added to his thoughts like weights to a net; transporting a motor vehicle between colonies was expensive.....  
  
It was a good machine, though. He admired well-constructed machinery and technological devices greatly, from printing presses to handguns. This was a very good machine and now that he thought about it, he didn't care to leave it behind. It had some balance issues, being more unwieldy than its fellow motorcycles, along with having unnecessary storage options, but it was secure and possessed a good grip on the road.  
  
He didn't intend on staying in space for all that long. After a few more weeks he would return to Earth, where he would stay for a number of months. Perhaps he could send it there - he still knew some people who would take it in for a time.....  
  
Involuntarily, his mind lept back, jump-started by the reminder of existing contacts.  
  
"How are you liking space, Heero?"  
  
"No different than before." Duo grinned.  
  
"Oh. I thought the lack of shelling and governmental disorder would have added some charm." He chewed on a bit of tangerine. "Silly me." 


	6. Ch6 Sun's Shadow

Disclaimer: Usual applies  
  
Ch. 6 'The Sun's Shadow'  
  
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A headache pressed against the space between her ears in dull pain, the palm she held against her forehead, the icepack at her neck and the pain medication she took a while ago being unhelpful so far. Moaning she rolled onto the other shoulder, repeating, once more, the reasons why she should be lying on her bed rather than the couch, why she should stop Rachael from achieving the dizzying success of her first hangover, why she must move now or face the regrets of not having done anything in the next hour! Nothing, neither the lists or her weighty conscience or the tingling in her shoulder, made her body respond. She was sunk, she was in misery, she was despondent and on the verge of depression - a hazy, muzzy, fuzzy-blue funk that was thrown over her ears, eyes, nose and mouth and that she didn't fight, much as she knew she could, kept her from reacting as she normally would.  
  
The hotel suite seemed too pinky-beige, too soft and enclosed to be comfortable. The couch she had tumbled upon on entering was overstuffed with thin, hard armrests that caused the ache in her head to spread. The odor of alcohol was light but irritating to her overloaded senses, the bed was just too far away, the bathroom could never have all the cold water she needed if it was ever-supplying, fertile as a hotspring. Worst of all - Earth was too far away and at the same time, too unapproachable to be of much consolation. Even the view of it from outer space was soured at present and all its old beauty and appeal lay hidden in the dark, shadowy edge, the sun's shadow, that had swallowed its other half.  
  
"This tastes funny." Rachael said thickly, holding up a bottle one fourth full. She turned glassy eyes on Relena, who only watched with one, half-lidded eye as she talked. "I have..a very - low alcohol tolerance." She tottered close, dressed in the button-up blouse she had had on at the meeting, but without the skirt and still, wearing her pumps. Her shirt tails hung little past her hips and her knee-highs seemed quite rumpled. "'From my muth's' side. Dad could drink... like a fountain." Relena twisted until she lay on her back and Rachael stared at the bottle in her hand. "Did..you have any to drink? This was full - a moment - ago."  
  
"No. I'm not much of a whiskey-drinker." Relena murmured, shading her face with an arm. Oh, she couldn't let Rachael - a young woman older than herself yet so much less streetwise - get so drunk, so crazy-drunk, all because of her, what good would that do in the long run, they needed all their wits the next day! The thought of getting shitfaced made her stomach turn but that was still not enough to raise her. Rachael retreated to the lounge: she could hear her settle into one of the larger chairs, the Klink of a forsaken bottle sounding soon after. Light snoring sounded minutes later.  
  
Lord, had she failed! She failed! And Rachael suffered because of her failing, her shortcoming - how many people had depended on this, how well this would have worked with more time, more planning, more funding! Relena despised the 'easy way', too many took it rather than shoulder the work that needed doing, she wanted to pummel the 'easy way' into a meteor shower and let it get torn to shreds there! People could die, and they took the 'easy way'. Homes and lives would be decided through this groups' actions - and they voted for the 'easy way'. The future well-being of space's growing human population hinged on how this entire project went for them and they grabbed at the 'easy way' rather than roll up their armsleeves -   
  
She had failed.  
  
She had been too confident and failed completely as a result.  
  
Relena felt less inclined to think bad of the liquor available in the suite but her body shuddered at the thought of anything passing through her mouth to her stomach. Nothing would have held.  
  
The meeting started well. The presentation, the speeches, the information so well-gathered and clear and organized. They all seemed opptimistic and enthused by this 'suggestion'. Rachael felt as happy as Relena did. But it didn't work. Several persons brought up questions and points they felt had not been addressed properly and, due to this lack of care, they formed a decision on the project Relena cared so much for. It wouldn't go through.  
  
The main issue was money. (There was none to pass out, much less to the extent it'd be needed to complete the steps in the project). When Relena suggested she pay for some of it out of her own purse - a true risk as that made her susceptible to all kinds of critizism and suspicion - they had turned her down politely. The project would be used in the making of the final product and, of course, they would need her help with it. She could not refuse regardless of her extreme disappointment. With two weeks to form this final product Relena had until then to do what she wished - namely, attend duties of equal importance in other places - before she was needed once more as part of the team.  
  
The final project to come out of all this would be less efficient and more tangled than she saw fit but it would cost less - in the short run, anyway. No matter the long run as they only had enough money to use for short run purposes. The consequences were ones she did not want to face just then.  
  
Heavens, she needed to get away. Just for a while. She had two more days on the colony before the team broke up for the two week recess and she needed time off. Rachael would need some recuperation just as much as she. At least, once she could walk in a straight line again..  
  
Relena heeded the small cry in her body that tugged at her to leave the suite. Disregarding her ID and leaving her blazer in her room she found herself walking the halls of the hotel. It was afternoon and warm outside, long stretches of shadow engulfing whole blocks as the colony's position changed opposite the sun. Giving the matter as little thought as was necessary she went outside and glanced around, taking in the inhabitants and their homes through a less formal eye. To keep herself moving Relena wandered up and down streets perpendicular to the hotel, crossing over every so often to keep things interesting. An hour into the walk she bought some Persian tea, lingering at the restaurant from which she had ordered it a while in enjoying it.  
  
A band of boys - not much younger than her, really, although she tended to ignore those differences for the sake of regular life - performed on the street opposite her. She left the nook with a small smile.  
  
"This is a costly move you're asking of us, Miss Foreign Vice Minister."  
  
"Pardon?"  
  
"Funding is at an all-time low at the moment, Miss Foreign Vice Minister. How do you propose to raise the necessary two billion to finance the project?"  
  
"Money is key to this, I know, but these people need this! - how else are you, we, citizens of Earth, supposed to build trust in the colonies and create a relationship between them and us if we don't dig in?" (She could have bitten herself for the timely phrasing on that).  
  
"It's a well-researched plan, I agree." Mr. Heimer leaned back, his mustache, thick and heavy, rustling under a sigh he let loose. "Nonetheless, the war has ended only a short while ago. This is extremely extravagant, almost too generous, even, to put into action without some shortcuts being made - such as, why redirect all the traffic of the elderly colonies to working colonies when we could just section the old colonies up and build from there? With the materials available, it would take less time than normal, and less people would have to put their life on hold."  
  
"That would take years longer than this plan. And, in the end, it would be more expensive." One of the few things Rachael had dared say seemed to have hit home, although she cowered in her seat under the stare of Ambassador Buckler for much of the time otherwise. Relena nodded aggressively, her eyes darting around at everyone seated at the table. Without thinking of it she stood up, her chair pushed back with a grinding sound, and began pacing around the table.  
  
"The war has ended only a few months ago. The repurcussions of this war still rages on, both on Earth and in space. Yet, shouldn't we confront it? Everyone is still in shock, but shouldn't we overcome it in facing it down?" She turned sharply and the heel of her shoe gave a large squeak. Her expression was tight and aggravated. "We owe it to the people as well as ourselves! In time, every colony will need to be remodeled or built anew. Will our descendants have to repeat this every time?"  
  
"That still does not answer the question of money, Miss Vice Foreign Minister." Relena regarded the speaker, a tall, gawkish man of fifty with a receding hairline, whose voice had rung out dryly in the quiet room quite clearly.  
  
"I would pay out of my own pocket if I could, Mr. Stern. As it is, I am not in that fortunate position. More campaigning, I'm sure, might bring in more funding, but - "  
  
" - that costs money as well. How are we to get forward on this topic?" Mr. Stern nodded at this and the speaker, Ambassador Buckley, leaned back in a smug, hesitant way (were these cushions clean? Or were they crawling with germs and dandruff from former occupants?). Relena's arms lay limp against her sides but her expression remained the same.  
  
"This could endanger lives."  
  
"Not if planned well."  
  
"We don't have the time!" Rachael broke in.  
  
"We have a week. With a large enough team we'll be able to handle it."  
  
"Oh. Well. I am afraid I can't be part of that team." Relena said, her voice tired, shoulders sagging a bit. Mr. Stern's body flew forward as he regarded her forcibly.  
  
"You will not be joining us?"  
  
"You're not supporting us, Miss Vice Foreign Minister Darlian?"  
  
"Is this some sort of pout, Miss Vice Foreign Minister? Are you upset that we are not aligning ourselves with your project as you'd planned?"  
  
"No; no. I am supporting this move: I desperately want citizens of outer Space to have a safe, stable home, and for space to have a place for all to go to without fear, and I know we will get there. Yes, I do not agree with your proposition, or that everyone else agrees to it but myself and my team, but the truth is - I am exhausted. This project has exhausted me." Relena found her seat again and stood behind it. "I will not be joining you out of necessity. Several have expressed concerns for my well-being," Physical and mental, though she did not voice this, "and I am now going to take their advice.  
  
"I will take a week-long vacation, ladies and gentleman. My team will, as well. They have done exceptional work and deserve it." Taking a pause and a deep breath Relena glanced at the clock above the door. Officially, the meeting was over. "If you will excuse us now......"  
  
And that had been it. Two hours, rather than the one hour anticipated, of petitioning and arguing and discussing - she needed a break.  
  
Now, Relena looked up and was astonished to see she had come round full-circle - the hotel was just up ahead. Her feet had automatically led her back the way she knew - a light grip settled onto her forearm and she turned, puzzled, frazzled but healing and pleasantly surprised at the interruption that materialized at her side.  
  
Heero stared her in the face, hard. His hand on her arm did not move but he knew, somehow. She tilted her head in a sheepish way, smiling crookedly. They began walking away from the hotel once more, even though it was near evening. Again, Relena's mind ignored the physical images of what she saw passing by, the people and stores and restaurants (enticing as the smell wafting from them were she never noticed them); a feeling of goodwill did enter her stomach, though, and that was even better. At his presence her nerves calmed somewhat.  
  
She explained to him the events of that afternoon and he listened, breaking in at several points when she lacked specifics. In turn she let loose the gates and flooded him - her frustration leaked into that informational flood but he said nothing about it, for once. Her emotions, so clearly on display, took hold of her gestures and hands until her fingers performed agile tricks in the air around them, this gesture referring to Mr. Stern or Rachael, this hand-slap an accusing thought concerning the Ambassador, that flick of fingers imitating Ms. Krauser, whose flat, non-energetic approach to Relena's project had been an irritation throughout the campaign's baby steps.  
  
They stopped next to a building on which the sun shown directly; the mekamarble was still warm and Relena leaned against it.  
  
"What are you going to do?"  
  
"Now?" Heero nodded, shrugging. Relena hooked her fingers together in front of her and gazed at a pothole in the road. "I don't know. Take that vacation, I guess."  
  
"Where?" Heero asked after a lengthy pause. Relena shook her head - she had tried not to think of it, the thought of a brief recess in her work unnatural to her. Heero shifted in place from one foot to the other until she came up with something.  
  
"I've never taken a vacation. I - well, I never thought that I'd to take one this soon." Relena said, stumbling as her thoughts had not formed complete words yet. She gaven a small, embarrassed chuckle. "They were surprised, though."  
  
"Hn." Heero grunted, steadily eyeing a car parked too far from the curb. Relena turned her head in his direction questioningly.  
  
"When are you going to the old training center, Heero?" She asked. His eyes traveled back to her face.  
  
"Sometime." Relena studied the ground at her feet for several minutes. A quarter of an hour later, with her mouth screwed up and her eyebrows at a severe slant in her face, she glanced at Heero again.  
  
"Might you be willing to plan on going earlier than later?" Heero simply stared at her and she, sighing, stared at the pothole again. Her eyes closed halfway as she enjoyed the warmth of the sun. "I would actually like to..go with you, perhaps. Maybe. If you don't mind." Heero turned away.  
  
"If you need a vacation, go to Earth, don't travel on shuttles all over space." She smiled.  
  
"I was once there when I was five, with my family. Returning, just once, without a party of delegates and state officials, might be an experience." He remained silently but gruffly opposed and she added, "I know it would be worthwhile. Wouldn't you like some company?"  
  
"That's not what I meant."  
  
"Regardless. It won't be here for much longer. Unless you disagree with my accompanying you, that is." Heero was quiet for a long moment before letting out a grumpy sigh. Her smile returned but Heero seemed puzzled at it.  
  
She never mentioned it again, and they never questioned whether or not he agreed. There may have been questions between the two, secrets, certainly - a few mysteries yet to be solved, anything - but this time nothing was stowed away where it couldn't be seen, nothing was tucked into a corner for later arguing. On Relena's part she was glad at the speed at which preparations were made, and how quickly other's complaints and disagreements sputtered out in the meantime. The hospitable colony she had come to in such high hopes she left - the next day, actually - with hope used and befouled but on the mend. And she couldn't wait for this vacation to start.  
  
After all, things never ended where one felt they would - they only ended when they were good and ready to. 


	7. Ch7 Fun in the Sun

Disclaimer: Usual applies.  
  
7nth chapter already! *sniff* Hope you enjoy it.  
  
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Rachael had argued with her the morning after the conference, just as Relena was finished packing what little she needed for a week-long vacation. Once out of the suite, though, she quieted in contemplation of where she would go, seeing as Relena had every intention on going through with this vacation (which she had to grudgingly admit to). The entire team, having had no real warning beforehand, was thrown off balance by their employer's quick departure and felt yet undecided as to what they would be doing in the time left to them. Meanwhile, the other party, with some grumbling, began churning out the ideas necessary to polish off the project of restoring and rebuilding the older colonies through the second plan.  
  
Their shuttle left early, before the media caught wind of the Vice Foreign Minister Darlian's vacationing abroad, so nothing but the ride to the airport was rushed. Heero, yet reluctant, was silent much of the way but Relena didn't mind. She entertained herself with old memories of the training center, which she really was looking forward to. She wondered if Heero had made any memories there as well, whether he might share or keep to himself. The shuttle ride was generally quiet but for the hum of working machinery and the few passengers on board - a minimum of ten passengers were required to be on a spacecraft as small as this in order to take off, otherwise, the shuttle was too light in its travels to and from destinations.  
  
The training center was located on a well-planned orbit around the moon, sturdy for its age but in danger of experiencing meteor showers. It had once been larger but a section used for storage had been torn off in one such meteor shower, leaving the center to continue alone. That section was never rebuilt and it was decided to balance the center with weighty objects to cement it in its course - at that point, they began training pilots and space GI's in heavy machinery with as-heavy ammunition on top of the equipment they had been using for the past century.  
  
A small inn crowded a corner of the once-planned colony - now barely worth the title, and few called it that nowadays - and it was there Heero sent their luggage. He gave Relena the choice of coming with him or going with the luggage to the Inn: leaving their bags in the hands of a professional errand boy they headed for the training center. The flight had been quick and she was not as tired as she would have felt fresh off a shuttle flight between earth and space, but the strange tension that had sprung up shortly before their flight continued to subdue the conversation.  
  
Being on such small ground lent the place the air of being inside a fish bowl - so obviously tiny in a place very big. On a larger colony, space surrounded a person entirely but there was a horizon to separate the colony from the void: in this case, the edges of the colony were steeply, unevenly rounded, and space pressed in on the glass-plate shell protecting their atmosphere with silent, but consistent ferocity. If one turned in the other direction, one's eye was partially, if not filled with a numbing, sobering view of the moon. It was close enough to see its many eye sockets and the pale, tight, pocked and dipping surface; the Beauty of Earth and the Hag of Space was gone, replaced by something as shockingly ugly as it was startling and poetic.  
  
The layout of the tiny half-colony was this: one large, wide lane in which shuttles rested before or after take-off and a few streets leading from it to form, first of all, a residential area of three buildings - the lodgings of several military families. Next came a small, two-lane street that led to the court of a small Inn, then a couple of storage buildings and a bath house that lay, completely severed from the Inn, on the right. Lastly, another vein of the main street wandered off to sit at the back of the colony, the only way to the training center itself. The area that had been torn off during a meteor shower a decade ago could easily be spotted: a twisted shred of metal, wires and beams extended, like a withered limb, from the side of the half-colony into space.  
  
Despite how small the half-colony was they took a bus to the 'center. It was an unusual ride in which Heero continued to speak monosyllabically, much to the more-gregarious driver's chagrin. Relena watched the edge of the half-colony dip into space with reserve, not impressed by its position in the less-populated regions of the universe. Unwillingly letting her gaze return again and again to the moon Relena joined Heero in his silence, her fingers cramping in her lap as she laced them together. She couldn't remember this from her childhood - she felt back through all those years without reliving the feeling of being in danger of falling off the colony onto the moon, nothing. Apparently, the last visit had left her with fewer memories than she realized, even though it had been one of the few trips she had taken with both her parents.  
  
The bus ride was short; the few buildings acting as apartments for military families came and went; Relena thought she had seen a few lawnchairs around the compound as well as a small playground. The Inn was bare of decoration, settled in the midst of a large lot. Ahead, the center crouched against the wall of the half-colony, a moving van parked out front into which boxes were piled as they approached.  
  
For the next week the training center was open to visitors; students of the center had left earlier as the equipment was packed. Following behind Heero Relena let old memories color the otherwise drab and unmarked surroundings; uneven patches of white on the walls proved the former existence of pictures having once been hung there - plaques and templates, now removed, left behind an outline of where they had previously sat. Though small in outward appearance the training center felt larger once one was inside; space had been oddly wrangled to achieve the largest training rooms possible, creating the smallest of restrooms and broom closets. They passed through one such training room with a dome-shaped ceiling; impressions and markings on the floor vouched for a specific use having been practiced before the dismantling of the colony.  
  
Relena pointed the markings out and asked Heero about them.  
  
"Aries Simulation room. Used to train pilots operating an Aries," He glanced at the ceiling, "Before they were let into battle."  
  
"They had training machines meant specifically for Aries?" She remarked incredulously. "Did they have the same for Leos? And - other dolls?"  
  
"Yeah..somewhere. They served other functions as well - general distress simulations, emergency operation in combat, zero-gravity simulations..." He turned around, glancing over his shoulder as he spoke. "Some undergraduates came here with little experience of being in a spacecraft without gravity control. Under supervision they would practice being in those surroundings." He spoke quietly, his voice never making it past Relena's ears. She nodded.  
  
"My father and I were given a tour of the more touristic views, I suppose. I never saw these rooms. How many students were allowed in a given year?"  
  
"That depended on their type of training."  
  
"Ah." They exited the room through a different door than they had entered - it did not resemble a tourist-friendly hall but Heero seemed to know his way. Staying close to his side Relena caught peeks at things that had not yet been packed - including a memorial statue of an early astronaut, the importance of which eluded her for the time.  
  
She glanced at Heero's face but the expression on it meant little. He seemed intent on walking down the corridor; the only other topic of discussion she felt available was inappropriate, as it referred to what he did before the war, or perhaps, during it. Though her own discomfort would have been slight, had the subject arisen, she felt Heero had long refused preparations for facing it, which would cause him to resent both her and his self at the resurfacing of these unpleasant memories in conversation. Swinging her arms at her sides Relena silently gazed around herself, interested in any scrap of detail the scarce halls contained.  
  
Only a minute later they met with the end of that hall - and came upon a yet untapped view the half-colony offered. Obviously meant to be seen only by the staff - they were too far into the bowels of the training center to have it otherwise - the end of the hall flattened into a glass-plated window meeting cheek-to-cheek with space. The glass was layered and several feet thick but none of this obscurred the clarity of the view. Such a perfectly uncluttered visual drop into the cosmos shocked the gentle passerbyer - it was too unexpected. A handlebar, made of glass as well to better meld into this seemingly 'perfect' view, offered a place to hold onto. Heero set his hands on it but it took a moment for Relena to feel comfortable laying her grasp on the bar; chiding herself for this fear she stepped up to it, finding that she could see almost past her feet and below the colony.  
  
Eyes widening, she forced herself to adjust as quickly as the other. Only a section of the moon was visible, and then only in her peripheral vision: glowing light and hazy distances reminded her of the expanse of what she was seeing. The actuality, the raw reality, of space never hit a person as they expected - it was too immense to properly register in one's mind. A group of stars to the right were nonexistent - the light they had once given off transcended the years they had been dead until they reached the few that could attach importance to them. Without consciously trying she saw the end of the galaxy, though all she thought she saw was an incalculable distance, a muzzy black wall. The far-off haze she could focus on in some places might well have been separate universes - who and how many might be looking in her direction from there?....  
  
Just don't look down.  
  
You looked down.  
  
I'm going to fall!  
  
"Mother always preferred Earth to..to Space." Relena began; her eyes remained wide but she felt more at ease talking. "Shuttle rides are so cramped if you're not used to them. She always got sick - they never serve food and she never ate before a flight, so she always had a stomach ache. And usually, we left home because of my father's business, so it never felt entirely like the vacation she wanted. Not that I remember her coming along too often, either - I didn't go all the time, too, of course..but...." She took a breath, glancing down again. "The war we witnessed seems so insignificant here. All this - we nearly tore up our own race, but out here, who cares? This - is a constant war." She remained quiet for a moment, thoughtful. "I couldn't ever be surprised that man forced its way into being out here. It was meant to be, if you belief in fate." With a sideways glance at Heero, she smiled, shakily, adding, "I prefer faith, myself." Hooded eyes caught up with her own and she thought he agreed.  
  
Relena felt a sudden impulse come on and she twitched at the mentioning of it. Glancing away and back at Heero she raised her left foot - all the while being extremely conscious of the results of this impulse, and her foot - and, setting it down closer to where Heero stood, reached out with a hand to take one of his. Her fingers curled around it, passing over the skin of his knuckles to his palm. She could feel old callouses dissolving on his skin there. Eyes drifting up towards his face again, she felt the weight of his stare before she met it.  
  
Two spirits watching a great, massively colliding war - one Dorothy spotted before she ever left Earth's atmosphere - watched reservedly and with their own doubts. In the end, the war continued, but their eyes turned from it to each other. Power might challenge and win over, but could never compete with compassionate, impassioned understanding, regardless of the way both molded the outcome of a history.  
  
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The Inn was pleasantly headed by Juan Certimo, whose duties ranged from cooking and cleaning to managing the hotel. In the days they stayed there Relena never once saw a maid - rather, she saw Juan perform all necessary chores. In the mornings, he wore an apron (kitchen duty) over rubber boots (plumbing service) - in the afternoon, he usually wore an old jogging suit while washing sheets. Unless a shuttle was destined to land that day he never changed his routine - or attire.  
  
Juan informed them that their luggage had already been brought to their apartments; then he gave them a small menu containing meal choices and times (no room service). Keys in hand Relena and Heero trouped up to their separate rooms - at either end of a hall. Smiling, Relena nodded, spoke a farewell and trod into her small suite. Not quite a suite, admittedly - a tiny bathroom and a separate room with a bed and set of drawers in it. Without a desk to tempt her Relena had no reason to bring out the little work she had brought along. Other than a radio there were no appliances, either - a phone was kept downstairs for calls. At approaching the bed Relena could smell the detergent that had been used (certainly not an unpleasant odor - something along the lines of "Mountain freshness", perhaps). The sheets were tightly stretched across the mattress, so much so that she could have played with jacks on its surface.  
  
There was nothing there that would befit the needs of a relaxing vacation, other than the company. No greenery, as gardens were exceptionally hard to grow even on moonfarms, and other than the bathhouse and the training center no place to visit. The only restaurant in the area sat below her, in Juan's cafeteria. There was little visual appeal about the half-colony as much of its glory came from its history rather than its concrete-and-iron-wrought being. Yet Relena never felt more surprised than when she looked out the window at the back of the Inn to see the stars.  
  
A view of the moon took up much of her immediate attention, goring her eyes with its startling, pockmarked appearance. (She would never become accustomed to the brilliant, pale white and gray of its skin, she knew that already - it seemed like some blind man's warped vision of mother of pearl). Once she could rip her eyes from it her gaze wandered below - and into a well-kept, orderly patch of green, maybe 14 by 20 feet in size. Real grass, thick and long, and small, ornamental - but real! - trees. Dainty shrubbery and various kinds of flowers - a hammock held up between two posts.  
  
She was so quickly, suddenly reminded of her home - and that of her biological parents' - that it stung. Though she abstained from working in it her mother always enjoyed the garden, and her father used to walk on the footpaths at night with Relena as a child before leaving for a business meeting outside of the state. Everyone has memories of a garden, somewhere, and it takes very little to bring them out. In this case, with the moon just a few miles from where she stood above Juan's garden, Relena's thoughts jumbled about in their discovery, one so profound she could not remove herself from the window for ten minutes. So much was reminding her of her parents on this trip and it had only been a day.  
  
She meant to bring about the topic of the garden the next morning, at breakfast. Perhaps he would explain its origins. Glancing around, she remembered that the closest moonfarm was ten miles away; the efforts of bringing about plant life in a place devoid of the necessary resources was astounding and difficult - that the few that existed did so well was mind-rattling. Here was one man's effort in a corner of their expanding universe and he had managed to do what battalions of farmers sometimes could not.  
  
The night passed quickly, trees and hoes and butterflies flittering behind Relena's eyelids. She woke up thinking much the same that she had when she fell asleep. Not bothering to change first she climbed out of her bed and went to the window. It was still there.  
  
In her haste she failed to catch sight of the (relatively small) warning on the shower curtains - "15 minute showers at most to conserve limited water supply!". As a result she spent five minutes at the sink, scrubbing suds from her body and hair with relish - oh, oh, cold water, oh - in a mostly-naked state. She felt regret at the water on the floor and mirror but raced from the bathroom to change. With the radio turned on she dried her hair and dressed; at finding the news station was undergoing technical difficulties, she gladly switched to the classical station (perhaps she would get away with having heard next to nothing of what was happening in the week of her absence).  
  
The smell of coffee was pungent once she got herself downstairs. Heero sat a table for three, drinking his second cup. A small buffet was set out and after she chose her breakfast she joined him, a happy grin tugging at her mouth.  
  
"Good morning." Heero stared at her as though diagnosing the expression on her face. She poured a second packet of sugar into her coffee. "Did you happen to see what was outside?" He nodded and she picked up a slab of coffee cake to dunk. "It's so beautiful." She eyed him, munching on the moistened coffee cake. "Heero, are you going to the training center today?" He nodded again and she tilted her head to the side thoughtfully. "I might ask Mr. Certimo about his garden later, in a free moment." She laughed lightly, quietly. "I'm not sure what to do. The only time I've been on a vacation was with my family."  
  
"You could go to the bathhouse." She cocked her head to the other side.  
  
"I guess I could." Heero stared at her before getting himself another cup of coffee. Relena went on to say, "I..brought a book along, too." She trailed off, turning her wandering mind to her unfinished breakfast. Heero took his time with his coffee, seeming to finish up only when she set her plate on a tray of dirtied dishes. Turning, she gave him a bright, agreeable smile. "Have - a good day, Heero."  
  
"Yeah." He sat for a moment in strangled silence before muttering a goodbye and leaving. Once he was on his way she glanced around expectantly, wondering where she would be able to catch Juan. By chance he graced the doorway to the kitchen and she rushed to catch his attention. Already, he had doffed gardening gloves along with his apron and rubber boots. Smiling indulgently he greeted her, shrugging at not being able to shake hands.  
  
"I saw your garden, Mr. Certimo, from the window in my room." His eyes brightened at her interest.  
  
"Do you like it?"  
  
"It's wonderful - I haven't seen anything like it here."  
  
"Thanks. I'm glad you enjoy it." He chewed at his inner cheek for a moment before adding, "Would you like to see it?" She nodded. He took her through the back of the Inn until the stepped out onto the grounds. The grass started a few feet from the backdoor; in daylight, the garden seemed smaller. Trees bordered much of it but some sapplings were scattered nearer the center; flowers had been seeded in no particular order, adding color to otherwise continuous values of green.  
  
Juan took her in - he stepped softly on the grass, and, feeling hushed by the caution he exhibited so fondly toward his work, so did she - and began by telling of her the first sappling they encountered. He related the manner in which he had aquired the trees - he hadn't grown any from seed, but managed to persuade pilots to bring him baby plants from Earth - ending the tour with the flowers. Though not a gardener by profession or hobby Relena listened - she asked whether he let the soldier's families visit and whether the temperature and conditions were enough to nurture the plants. They finally stopped in the meager shade of one of the larger trees, silent for a moment.  
  
"How long have you - ah, been growing this?"  
  
"Five years."  
  
"Oh." Juan waved a hand around, tempering his pride with reserve.  
  
"It keeps me busy when I get tired of delegating at the Inn." He glanced up at the young canopy above their heads with a thoughtful, near-wistful sigh. "Too bad there isn't anything else here. Birds, all that. It wouldn't be fair to keep 'em trapped here, though."  
  
"What animal life could the garden harbor, though?" Relena asked, doubtful as to whether such little greenery could be much of a home for anything.  
  
"Nothing - but if I could, I'd have hummingbirds here."  
  
"That'd be nice."  
  
"Yeah." He gave a start, peeked at his wristwatch and promptly turned back towards the Inn. "I have some things to do, Ms. Dorlian - you can stay here if you want to." Relena smiled widely at his retreating form.  
  
"Thank you very much, Mr.Certimo!" She called after him. Grinning to herself, she looked to her left at the hammock - and ran towards the Inn for her book and some sunscreen.  
  
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All he had to hold onto the hooks by was his mouth. On all fours, saliva dripping down his shoulder, teeth digging into the metal neck of a medium-sized hook, Heero shouldered his way through the simple venting system below the training center. No one had bothered updating the vents since the colony had been built: updating required money that was already going into training programs and planning none of the board wanted to burden themselves with.  
  
Updating venting systems and the like involved constructing separate vents - sometimes even entire systems separate from the existing one - that wove through the standing vents. It made a working vent system a maze with several dead ends and more looped chutes than a standard rollercoaster, consequently becoming an impractical nuisance to anyone involved though the practice of building them was common.  
  
Heero found himself in what he guessed to be one of the last vent systems never to have been fiddled with. The plans he had with him - a map of the vents presently hooked to a leg underneath his trousers - were wonderfully precise. He didn't miss having to second-guess a good vent system map and groping his way through what would hopefully lead to where he needed to go. Actually, he was even enjoying himself a little. No deadline, no time frame in which to operate, no confusion - though some of these vents had less-than-satisfactory work done on them when they were first installed, what the hell was this doing with a rip, melded metal never gaped when done properly...  
  
The vent bent upwards and Heero, wanting to lick his dry lips but instead clamping further down on the hook with spittle-wettened teeth, dug his elbows and knees into the side of the walls around him to heft his weight up. Grimacing at the weight he carried - extra rope, kevlar vest, headphones connected to a battery and recorder at his hip, a satchel with his regular clothing packed in it, some tools wrapped and strapped to his other hip, and a gun - he cautiously made his way past the third basement - the second - the first - a bend in the vent gave him some relief before continuing up to the ground floor -   
  
Truthfully, he had expected this trip to feel familiar. Perhaps one previous time was not enough to goad him into nostalgia, though the one previous time had been a memorable one.  
  
After all, while the other half to the colony had been blown apart during a meteor shower, it was not due to that meteor shower. The meteor shower was an accomplice, and a very sneaky one - it cloaked the true reason for the explosions that occurred. Naturally, Heero knew - as did his mentor of old days past - that someone, several someones, were aware of what had happened, and why (which was the core of the event). What they were ignorant of was the perpetrator of the act - and Dr. J never intended for them to find out.  
  
Heero felt that, while Dr. J was fond of his hide and willing to committ to almost anything, he had his own sense of honour in that his and Heero's identities had been better than hid - according to the record showing the date of that meteor shower neither a boy of early teen years nor an elderly man with a crippled arm existed on the colony. Now, panting quietly, Heero, the other third of that offending party guilty for the extermination of the other half of the colony, clambered his way back to the scene of the crime. Contrary to what a visitor - or any student of the training center - might see guards were posted with specific orders in more secretive parts of the building.  
  
For while Dr. J had honour he had secrets. He had recently contacted Heero and told him that the object of their former mission - thought to be completed at the time - had sprung up again and that he had to get in and haul it back to oblivion. Though he was not under any contract at present time Heero agreed to do as told as any failure that could be mended was a blemish on his character.  
  
He reached for his leg, wrestled with the material of his trousers for a moment and brought up the vent system map - faintly triumphant at the direct route he was to take he tied the plan to his calf again before continuing. Heero tapped the mouth piece to his headset, jaw tightening.  
  
"Phase two completed - beginning phase three."  
  
"Very good, very good. And Heero?" Dr. J paused. "No rush."  
  
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I would love and cherish all commentary -not only is it great encouragement, but that would tell me that others think this story is at least plausible. I'm having a ball writing this. How's the reading department doing? -Becca-W 


	8. Ch8 Trying to get clean

Disclaimer: Usual applies.   
  
*sing-song* Heero on the run, Heero on the run, where is he going, oh!, Heero on the run...  
  
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A grid separated him from the last of the run; beyond the grid, a small lapse in the vent system in the form of a hallway he had to cross in order to continue down the length of a vent to achieve phase four. Tensing, he took the hook from between his teeth and set it aside, far enough into the dark of the vent that no passerbye could detect it. Besides it he lay down the clothes and a small variety of things he had brought along with him, taking care that the gun was still lodged securely in the waist of his trousers. Creeping into the glow thrown off by the overhead light he unscrewed the grate, pulling it from the opening it sealed and leaning it against its frame in an inconspicuous position once he was on the other side.  
  
After doing the same with the grid across the hall he managed to slip into a smaller vent, too small for him to crawl but with enough space that he could elbow his way along, head bowed much of the way. Several minutes of this exercise tensed his shoulders, knotting the muscle uncomfortably. Monotony set in, the vent he wiggled through a continuous tunnel bridging the distance between himself and his object of focus - over a conference room, then acting as a rendezvous point for two enamored co-workers, a mess hall and a small gym in which two guards were taking their break. Cigarette smoke seeped into that section in the vent and Heero, accustomed but dispositioned to avoid the clingy smell, closed his eyes to keep them from getting irritated.  
  
"Yeah, man. Her parents."  
  
"When are you going to meet them?"  
  
"Sometime - soon, I think." Duo stared moodily at the table surface before grabbing another tangerine. Peeling it slowly, he considered the meat of the fruit pensively. Flecks of the peel dotted the area around Duo's elbows. "It'll be awkward. They haven't seen her since she joined the army."  
  
"Hn." Heero picked a tangerine from the crate - now sitting like a third companion in one of the vacant chairs between Heero and Duo - and picked at the sticker on it. "Lotus Moonfarm, Organic #115." Duo's stare traveled back towards Heero, who didn't seem to have heard him. Duo grunted. "I ask her about them, but she won't give me much." Shrugging, he added, "I don't know. I don't think she's talked with them alot since she moved here."  
  
Heero glanced up at Duo's disgruntled expression. He now picked pulpy peel bits from under his fingernails, mouth working as he chewed the inner corner of his mouth.  
  
"She can be so weird." He grumbled. He peeked at Heero from underneath his bangs quickly. "You know? But she's so great." He reached up and ran a hand through his hair, long strands of which had wormed out of its braid. "I don't know, I wish - I guess I want her to open up a little, about her parents. Is that being pushy? - Maybe it is. Nothing's been easy. But," He growled, apparently at himself, "I don't know if I want to know all that much. If it's that hard to share, then - I don't know....."  
  
Heero held up his mug and Duo took it to fill it up once more.  
  
Yawning, Duo's expression changed, turning more hopeful and, thankfully, sunny.  
  
"Have you seen Howard at all?"  
  
"No." A quirk of an eyebrow accompanied Heero's reply, questionning. Duo grinned.  
  
"Man, I was in contact with him last week - he retired again." Heero sat up a little.  
  
"That means - "  
  
"Yeah. He's back in business with the doctors."  
  
"Where?"  
  
"Somewhere off the coast of Maine, I think - in America, anyways." Heero chewed on his inner cheek for a moment.  
  
"He called?"  
  
"I don't even know how he got this phone number, I haven't given it to anyone but Hilde yet. Ah well." Duo leaned in playfully, saying, "He seemed interested in some parts I have for sale, but I haven't talked about it with Hilde yet. 'Said he would call again before knowing for sure what he needed. What do you think, are they ready for another war?"  
  
"Doubtful."'  
  
Grunting, Heero pulled himself through the last of the tunnel, upending himself on the floor of a vault. His conversation with Duo still played in his mind - it had been three hours along, something he couldn't easily forget. Not that he wanted to, either.  
  
"Creepy. Maybe all of them are back together with Howard."  
  
Apparently not. From the little Dr. J had given Heero before sending him on a retrieval mission two or three of the five minds behind Operation Meteor were working on separate projects. He did say that they had been in contact recently, as well as confirming the call he had made to Duo. He kept from telling Heero the intent of either the call or the project he was on; Dr. J only said - with a grin coloring the otherwise careful, rough voice transmitting through Heero's earphones - that Heero was going to be surprised for maybe the first true time in his life.  
  
The vault was the last step before reaching the object of the mission. Heero came upon a section of floor different from the rest - these tiles of iron were more weathered than the rest, worn. He dismissed the lack of care Dr. J had used in hiding the mysterious object, the tiles behing an obvious cover-up, as few ever came through the vents - indeed, even when reparations were made welders and the like did their work from the outside rather than climb into the vents. Few people had as detailed a map as Heero obtained and the possibility of getting lost was too pesky a risk to take into account. Working quickly Heero raised the tiles, back straining at the weight and knotted muscle tissue tensing further. As the vents echoed with loud noise he slid them to the side; Heero tapped the speaker of his earphone three times before diving a hand into the hole the tiles once hid.  
  
The hole was, at first, a tunnel roughly half a foot in diameter; once Heero dipped his arm in to the elbow the tunnel opened into what felt to be a cavern. Pulling up Heero tied a flashlight to the rope he'd been carrying and lowered that into the cavernous hole; the resulting glow immediately lighted on his find. Perspiration poured out over his skin and he felt his hands moisten; tightening his grip he pulled the flashlight back up, wiped the back of his hand across his eyes and drew out four hooks, smaller than the one he left behind, with dulled points.  
  
He tapped the speaker of his earphone once before asking a question via morse code over it. Silence invaded the small space he occupied for a moment before a set of taps came back to him. He pressed the earphone into his ear so as not to miss any of the relayed message, sending a startled glance down into the hole once it was over.  
  
Tapping once again he attached the hooks to cables, lowering them into the hole. Resounding clicks assured him they were in position; then he pulled, slowly, steadily. The tunnel was just big enough to let the find through; depositing the helmet, tangled cables and PC-like contraption on the floor to his left he fixed the tiles back over the hole, turning them upside down so they're unmarred side could blend in with the rest of the floor.  
  
Turning, he reached a hand out and stroked the helmet, really nothing more than a set of earphones with a mouth and chin piece and sensors that attached to the back of the head - the barest of functions needed to make the headpiece work in its designated form. The cables hung from it to attach to the rest - the heart of the machine. Heero's eyes glinted in the dark; this was what they were supposed to have destroyed the first time they came to this colony, when the other half was blown away in the explosion Dr. J had set off - he felt he should be angry but his emotions confused him once again; he felt numb, that numbness tinged with what could be amazement. The doctor had assured a much younger Heero that the machine was properly demolished in the wake of the explosion. With a devilish grin he'd added that a meteor really couldn't have done a better job, yet which, in later reports, became the truth - a meteor, not a planned explosion, was the reason for the destruction of the colony's other half.  
  
To Heero's left sat the remainder of that explosion, the focus of that old mission - the last, fully operational Zero system in existence.  
  
________________________________________________________________________________________________  
  
Relena lay limp and prone in the hammock, a book propped up on her stomach and a wide-brimmed straw hat (Juan's gardening hat) shielding her face from the constant sunlight. No matter the protections involved in the making of the glass shell above her, the sun was twenty times as harmful in space than on Earth as no colony could recreate atmospheric gases. (Due to this skin cancer was on the rise among colony inhabitants, though protective measures were being improved upon in bounds).  
  
Turning a page, Relena failed to catch the blur of movement to her far right, caught up in the words of her novel. She was consumed by a particularly active part when the brim of her hat was given a strong flick, making it slide up to reveal the whole of her forehead. Eyes wide, she stared directly into the face of her traveling companion - but for the pall to his skin and a strange brightening of eyes he seemed at ease. Bringing one hand to the crown of her hat and shoving it back in place, she sat up, offering up the free space to Heero. He sat down, careful not to squash her bare feet.  
  
"Hi." She said breathlessly. She hadn't thought of much but the unfolding plot in her novel since noon - it was late afternoon now. Cocking her head to the side, cheek meeting up with her shoulder as she had them hunched, she asked, "Where have you been all day, Heero?" He swung one leg over the other side of the hammock, straddling it, leaning back so that he sat directly opposite her.  
  
"The center." He nodded his chin at her novel. "What is it?" Quickly handing it to him Relena scrunched herself up more in order to give Heero space, feeling the quaint oddity of their situation in Heero's loosened behavior. She couldn't remember having ever seen him in a very relaxed state - much of their (chance) meetings had occured in turbulent times when they couldn't afford to be relaxed. Folding her arms over her abdomen Relena regarded him calmly, almost somberly - she expected reproach from herself or him, hell, even Juan, but nothing came. Could something so nice be so natural? He had been settled in the hammock with her for barely a minute, yet she felt so comfortable, more so than she had all day - or perhaps she was only just now realizing how at ease she really was. He gave her comfort. She felt herself respond to his body language, however unconsciously given, and gave in to the cushy, lax support of the hammock.  
  
Yet, after watching him further - with more sublety - she realized he was tense. The lack of resistance he put up as he melted into the hammock - just like she was doing! - was accompanied by some sort of strain. The tilt of his head, face pointed upwards, eyes wide open, his skin glistening, shoulders held against the hammock rather than melded to it. Wonder replaced her shortlived, happy surprise at their cool, friendly behavior - questionning, wanting wonder....  
  
Heero handed back the novel and she took it, letting it fall on its cover on the ground. Clearing her throat lightly, she brought Heero's attention on herself.  
  
"This," She waved a palm outwards, fanning the area of the garden, "Is Juan's. He did everything, even the grass." Sighing, she said, "Isn't it beautiful? So peaceful, even with the sun and the moon staring in on a person all the time..."  
  
"Have you been out all day?"  
  
"Yes. Why?"  
  
"You're red, across your face." She sat up a little.  
  
"Oh! Is it bad? I put on sunlotion, but that was an hour ago...." Reapplying every hour had become habit, how could she have forgotten? She touched the skin across her nose and cheeks, wondering if it would be tender - it wasn't, just very, very warm.....she didn't feel warm all over, though....Shaking her head, Relena let her worry fall. "Oh well. I'll put something cooling on it tonight. Heero, I haven't sneezed all day - what's different about this place from the other colonies?"  
  
"Different take on bacteria here - fewer plants, fewer people..."  
  
"Oh." She rubbed her nose with her knuckles. "I only noticed this a moment ago."  
  
They were silent for a moment, Relena's eyes concentrating on the sweat moistening Heero's skin, Heero's stare directed vacantly at her kneecap.  
  
Relena looked up suddenly, turning her nose towards the Inn. Sniffing, she recounted the reports the odors sent her - cooking was being accomplished, translating into dinner, stewed fruits and meat that was surprisingly appealing making up the brunt of the smells. Then, the short Bing of a bell being rung. Relena giggled under her breath - Juan was having fun using the dinnerbell, now that he had agreeable guests to serve. She made ready to get out of the hammock, raising her upper body from it and stepping on the ground with one foot - the other caught on the edge of the hammock and she fell forward with a soft grunt. Relena landed on her side, shoulder-first.  
  
Heero helped picking her up again, dusting her arms off with quick sweeps of his hands while he searched for any freak injuries. She stood patiently for a moment before taking hold of one of the flicking hands, smiling in a musing, friendly way.  
  
"Heero, I'm fine, you could just ask." Letting go of his hand she reached up to smooth her hair into place. "Hungry? That was Juan's dinner signal - he's a very good cook, too, he made me lunch."  
  
Stepping beside her they left the greenery, entering through the back door. Heero was satisfied that she hadn't received any scrapes - the bruise on her shoulder, which even she hadn't picked up on yet, was insignificant. In a way, he felt he had triumphed over all general accidents, unusually jittery nervousness concerning the Zero system aside.  
  
________________________________________________________________________________________________  
  
"I really don't want another HygieneSpray." Relena mumbled to herself later that night. It was too early to sleep but she was tired enough to consider some very lazy sport to amuse herself with. She wasn't usually given to but would have considered taking a long bath - bubbles, foam, lavender soap, candles, everything. It had been years since she had done anything like it.  
  
On small colonies, water was conserved to an exceedingly dangerous degree. Billing was most expensive where water was concerned on all the colonies; hence the shock when a larger colony let it rain. On smaller colonies, though, water was so rare that its inhabitants went without actual washing, or scrubbing of pots or boiling of tea. Juan had gone to much trouble getting his garden legalized, paying a small fortune for its upkeep even though all the plants therein were bred for just such captivity. In such places, cleanliness was achieved through HygieneSprays - a person would uncloth in either a private or public bathhouse, to which one paid access and could buy membership, and be sprayed down for exactly sixty seconds with a mixture of nature-friendly chemicals and water (only enough water to fill a teaspoon, though). However quick the experience it was unbelievably dissatisfying to one accustomed to showers.  
  
Instead, Relena journeyed to the local steamroom, luckily reserved for women that night. It stood just outside the residential buildings, a concrete hall with a booth outside that, in return for a small fee, spit out a one hour admission. The changing room was bare but for a wall of cubbies storing its visitor's belongings; the only other door there led immediately to a large, tiled room with fold-out chairs and a five-foot-deep pit of cold water in the center of it. Yet another door brought one to the steamroom. There were no windows; the tiles were a pattern of lilac and blue tones opposite white, all diagonal-shaped. To the right, opposite the entrance to the steamroom, were a row of booths with wide nozzles popping out the ceiling in each; HygieneSprays. ("Save me." Relena mumbled).  
  
Setting her towel around her waist - and enjoying the freedom of nakedness - Relena walked into the steamroom, stopping only to dip her toes in the cold water pit (the water was icy). Shuddering, she opened the door; dry, scorching fumes dove at her. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust even though she was not entirely inside.  
  
"Close the door, for heaven's sake!" Jumping a little, Relena hurried inside letting the heavy door fall back into place. The steam cleared from her eyes and she saw three women, equally naked, lying or sitting on towels set on benches against the wall. The benches were wide, the backs of them tilted back so as to give relief to stress-ridden guests. Gingerly stepping out of the light shining from above the door Relena found a seat amongst the others, laying her towel out slowly.  
  
One of them waved from where she sat, knees brought to her chest, hair lank and moist framing her face.  
  
"Hi." Relena nodded at her.  
  
"Good evening." She felt they all recognized her and wished they hadn't. The tension that came of it was, of course, imagined, made up by paranoia, but Relena felt it nonetheless and it irked her. No one said anything else; Relena focused on breathing, as the dry air seemed too much, to thick to consume. It was so heavy she wondered it didn't bruise her lungs as she inhaled. There was even a feeling of suffocation as, with each breath, she barely felt the air pass through her mouth. Rubbing a hand against her chest, where the air seemed to be pressing the most, she shut her eyes and waited.  
  
The door opened outward as one of the guests left for a quick dip in the water outside. Laying inside too long could be extremely unhealthy, sometimes dangerous. The maximum length of time spent in the steamroom was fifteen minutes. During her first fifteen, Relena let her mind go numb and clammy and concentrating on such bodily functions as breathing set her to rest.  
  
Leaving her towel on the bench Relena picked herself up, quickly retreating into the very bright, tiled room. She wasn't quick getting into the pit; the shock of the water hit her before she had her calves in. Gasping, she plunged in, rearing up at the startling pain and tingling. Her arms rowing like mad, Relena clambered out again, standing at the edge of the pit in bewilderment. Dear Lord! Her skin yet raced with the feet of small mice skittering all over; shuddering convulsively Relena went back into the steamroom to sweat it out before repeating the experience.  
  
In the end, she did take a HygieneSpray, but a very quick one. The dips into the pool and the steamroom had not cleansed her as she had hoped, though she'd been told her skin would be in the peak of its condition by morning.  
  
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Commentary appreciated. 


	9. Ch9 Ramming foreheads

Disclaimer: Usual applies.  
  
Hello! Quick note that is somewhat IMPORTANT: I will be gone, and probably outside any immediate source of internet access, for the next week as I'm going on a small family trip. For some inane, stupid and aggravating reason, when I updated ACD with the installing of Ch8, the update DIDN'T SHOW UP IN THE 'JUST IN'-BOX (that was a week ago). For some, this might be two new chapters (yay?...). I should've contacted..someone...but, either way, I'm leaving and this'll be the only update for the next two weeks - that is, I'll be updating again around Halloween. I need to catch up on my writing as I've been falling behind - and once I come back I'll probably have homwork and midterms yet to make up, so I'll really need a break from ACD for a small, small period of time.  
  
I hope you enjoy this chapter. Thank you.  
  
-Becca-W  
  
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"You have it, then? Is it intact, whole? Is it at all chipped or fragmented?" The smug pleasure in the doctor's voice met with panic at the thought of the damage the Zero system might have endured in its captivity, however solitary its existence had thus been. Heero informed him that it seemed to be just as the doctor had left it, leaving their conversation on a wry note that the doctor had the grace to pause at and consider.  
  
"Yes, yes, I know - you want me to have told you." The doctor, forehead creasing in thought, stared at the young man's face in the vidphone. "Unfortunately, I couldn't do that. This was something I didn't want you involved in. I was yet training you to act under the original guidelines for Operation Meteor, the first, and giving you such information would have been stepping out of my own personal boundaries." The doctor cracked the knuckles on his left hand, adding, "You know very well, Heero, that I would never do that." Dr. J grinned maniacally. "I'm far too interested in my own good to ever bring about my execution, and at the time, that would have been just what I was doing. After all, I was still training you to carry out the commands given to you and you were being trained under Oz's orders. You would have turned me in." Besides, I'm not the last to have lied to you, you bastard kid. The doctor went on grinning.  
  
Heero's even stare served only to slightly unnerve the doctor, who started clicking two of the pincers on his right claw to mutilate the daring silence breaching the distance between them.  
  
"So - what else have you been up to, student?" The doctor turned his eyes away and leaned into his chair. Behind him, to the left, Heero spied a pleasing view of the ocean. "I haven't heard of any ruckus in space yet - are you settling down or have I finally died?"  
  
Heero's eyes flickered from the ocean to the doctor's face.  
  
"You should know - you sent me here."  
  
"Ah, yes - we haven't been in each other's company in a while yet I remember quite clearly your testiness. Worry not, student, the jet lag wears off." The dry, sardonic tone he used then he wielded like a freshly-sharpened knife - carving silence into a conversation when he didn't feel up to a response. Then he suddenly smiled a soft, jeering smile. "How could I forget - you have interesting baggage with you. The Foreign Prime Minister attached herself to your side, didn't she? How is that going, I wonder?"  
  
Heero frowned sharply, offering no reply. The doctor mused, his mouth pursing and thinning with each new thought.  
  
"I do feel a mite sorry for her - her suitcase is a better companion than you." He paused, tilting his head to the side. "I met her once; she asked about you, actually. But that was so long ago. I hear she's growing up nicely. Though what she could possibly occupy herself with on that godforsaken island hell I haven't a clue." No matter the importance of the mission, both the official and the personal one, Dr. J had hated their time on the half-colony before. Heero didn't doubt that he would not have been retrieved and goaded into this mission if Dr. J had not had a heavy dislike for the place. The doctor was surprisingly attached to plantlife and the half-colony had nothing green or growing on it - the lack thereof had put him on snarling, beastly behavior.  
  
"Anyway," Dr. J righted himself, spinning in his seat so that his face hovered two inches from the screen of his vidphone, "How soon am I to get the Zero, then?"  
  
Heero considered him for a moment.  
  
"What're you going to do with it?" The doctor's expression flared into one of puzzled anger, his body immediately tensing at the unwilling sound in the other's voice. He despised this reluctance, it wasn't in his agenda. Stupid boy! He snuffled to himself a little.  
  
"How dare you question me." He ventured, hoping for the desired effect to take place.  
  
"I'm not under your authority anymore, Dr. J." Heero reminded him. Damn. "You're legally unable to retrieve the Zero system from this colony due to prior activity, correct? I've got it, but I'm not giving it away so easily. What are your plans?" The doctor's mouth tightened in anger; he felt like gnashing his teeth but resisted the urge, rather choosing to kick at the legs of his desk, out of Heero's line of sight.  
  
"What the hell would you do with it? - have children pay admission for a ride with it? Hook it up to the local arcade? Take it apart?" The doctor's face paled and he felt his hand get clammy. He wouldn't! The boy might be warped, but he just - he couldn't do that! That was the heart of something genius, it had bred a whole new race of computer/machine hybrids! - and it was the kid's sole, surviving past - didn't the kid hang on anything that was linked to that childhood of his? Or had he become soft staying with all those - all those marks? Blast it, the world was too fucked up and now the only bit he considered worth the trouble of focusing his attention on was being robbed from him, taken on the sly, little cutthroat! The doctor snarled wordlessly at the screen. "I gave my hand and some of my rights as a human being for the Zero! You can't take it away - I want it back!"  
  
Heero's expression tightened.  
  
"You want to compare what we lost for the Zero?" His voice was hesitant, pained and hard. "If you say that, then you have no idea the extent of the damages it has caused." The corner of the doctor's mouth turned up, but it was so forced it seemed to give him an overbite.  
  
"Sure. Then we'll share our childhood miseries of gang wars and prison rape as a therapeutic verbal vent." He threatened Heero with a daunting wave of his claw. "Distance is of no consequence to me - I have ways, Heero...." His tone of voice grew low and even. "I have ways......" Little shithole. Pisser. He seemed to remember similar behavior from the days of Heero's early post-puberty years. Never whined, nope, but the kid always had made the doctor want to jump out a window for his own good.  
  
Heero hadn't budged as his glare mounted in intensity.  
  
"Fuck you. Are you going to tell me or am I going to have to disconnect?" Heero disliked giving miscreants such choices but under the circumstances he felt the doctor had gone to a length not to smash the vidphone manually - all to extract the Zero system from his hands. From former experience he knew the doctor held to his temper only if motivated by extreme self-interest - if there was no risk in losing something he always let his victim feel the extent of his rage.   
  
Yet all the fond attachment Heero had for the Zero, a bred, unwanted liking of the thing that made him its slave, he sensed something underlying the doctor's desperation and need - his feelings for the Zero seemed to range alongside Heero's. In that, he felt briefly sympathetic - the Zero was an all-empowering, destructive, detrimental drug that he had yet to fully wash from his system. The doctor, never having been exposed to the present version - though he had tried the prototype out on himself repeatedly so as to assure that it would not be a fatal experience for humans - seemed to be having an even harder time coping without the Zero, if on a different level. His addiction was different from Heero's, similar only in that it was mostly mental.  
  
They glared at each other possessively. Heero cracked his knuckles while Dr. J clicked his claws together faster than before.  
  
"Where is it?" The doctor growled raspily.  
  
"Nearby. Hidden."  
  
"Ermph."  
  
Heero's silent snarl flashed across the screen.  
  
"If you have nothing else to say - " He said, interrupted as Dr. J sat up straight with a howl.  
  
"Boy, you give it to me - or else - "  
  
"Give me your coordinates and I might get in contact with you." A trail of obscenities buzzed at his head as the doctor let loose.  
  
"You little ass!"  
  
"Officially quitting the mission; the subject of our mutual interest is under close inspection and will be discussed at a later date, unless you choose to sever our connection permanently." Heero rattled off, ignoring the last outburst. Now the doctor ground his teeth together, the muscles in his jaw tightening, aching.  
  
Dr. J sent Heero the coordinates and a small list of other necessities needed to get back in contact with him. Having nothing else of importance to impart to the doctor Heero signed off. He glanced away from the darkened screen, at his foot. The vidphone lay in front of him, close to his knees where he kneeled on the floor of an empty office in the training center; it had the one of three private vidphones left in the building. This was the assistant manager's place. He was eating lunch in the cafeteria, at the one table left - everything else was packed and gone.  
  
Dr. J was one of the wiliest, most dangerous minds Heero knew of. As his pupil Heero was familiar with the doctor's methods; as a close observer he was aware of Dr. J's tendency of self-preservation. Through the man's actions during the past year Heero considered him unpredictable in a very predictable way. During their last conversation he now knew him to be a desperate man as well as a calculating egomaniac, willing to serve personal intentions through manipulation.  
  
His desperation would lead him to some plan of action, most likely involving the personal retrieval of the Zero system now in Heero's grasp. Heero thought is motives played out in self-interest with little regard for the consequence it would have on the masses - so much of what the doctor had done had, in some way, reached people to a general degree, which not many could claim of doing. Yet he ignored the effects he had on others, choosing only to acknowledge those actions that, in turn for affecting the people around him, affected him as well. Dr. J had an odd outlook on longterm planning.  
  
This led Heero to believe that he was no longer very safe on the half-colony. Granted, he wasn't safe anywhere anymore - even he had but a dim view of the ties Dr. J held. Howard would not aid the doctor in his search for Heero and the Zero, but he couldn't keep him from searching. Glancing up, but without seeing his surroundings, Heero planned out the next few steps - he felt he was to shuttle hop very quickly, very soon until further information could assure him of Dr. J's true intentions.  
  
Dr. J was a more known face among officials, having a noted criminal record even Oz could not put to rest during his employ in their organization, but he could slip by them just as well as Heero. Much of what he knew he once learned from Dr. J - but Heero had had other mentors that had left almost no papertrail behind them, as the doctor had. If he acted soon, Heero could avoid being tagged for quite a while, using the tricks of his childhood. Dr. J would hate him for it.  
  
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Mrs. Dorlian was with the hunting dogs when she received the call. Leaving the three to the company of her butler, Thompson, she came to the nearest secure vidphone in the house. Her surprise at the caller caused her spasm of happiness.  
  
"Relena! Goodness, I - are you alright?" Instinctive protectiveness took over as the mother peered as best she could into her daughter's eyes. Relena smiled widely, the care-worn face of one of the most familiar people in the world a soothing welcome on its own. She nodded, returning the greeting with warmth, then asked whether she was finding herself very busy at home. Mrs. Dorlian told her she was leading a very relaxed life with few interruptions - she had passed up the social season in mourning for her late husband, now dead barely more than half a year. Minutes later Mrs. Dorlian parted from the vidphone, remarking to a passing maid that she needed to visit with Thompson after dinner.  
  
After having shut down the connection to Earth Relena turned back to the cafeteria in Juan's Inn - Heero slowly, silently chewing at the table they occupied, they being the only other people besides Juan in the room. She walked back, the telecard tucked back into a fold in her purse. At pushing the chair into the table enough she dropped her stare to her plate, the meal in front of her steaming faintly but relatively untouched.  
  
"When are you leaving?" She asked, her voice clear but the tone of it troubled. Picking up a fork she dabbed at a small pile of peas. "I mean, I've made arrangements, but - I'd like to know..."  
  
Heero glanced at her.  
  
"Tonight." The fork tapped against the plate without warning, suddenly loose in her hand. She swallowed the small mouthful she had been balancing on the prongs. After a small moment she chuckled to herself, the sound of it swollen and inappropriate.  
  
"Oh. So soon." Looking up, she gave a small smile in return to his wondering expression. "I wasn't expecting it, but that's not my business." She sighed unwillingly. "I'm...so sorry if I'm not in best form tonight." Questions Relena would have asked a year ago, not now, not in her present stare of mature awareness and knowing and wisdom, popped into her mind, the participants in a meandering, narrow parade - Where? - the colonies, or Earth? Where in the colonies, where on Earth? How? With what? Oh, why, why must you, why? That was the focus, the purpose of that entire, damning parade - WHY? W-H-Y? What possible reason could uproot you so? Our secrets are becoming another link in this bond between us, we're one of the few that secrets can bind rather than part - we're so impossible, aren't we? Cleaved to each other out of the need for need. So difficult to live with, us. But - oh, but why?  
  
Peas were such an ugly shade of green.  
  
Heero stabbed at the table cloth without being noticed. He didn't like to disappoint - really, much of what he had ever done was to prevent failure, which could well end up in disappointment. Not that disappointing idiots weighed too much on his mind - but hurting people who, like he, had the amazing capacity to hope for an entire race of beings was - oh, painful, on either ends. His dinner hadn't tasted well. The taste of food was a pleasant privilege and without it, he regretted having eaten most of his meal only to feel the heft of it without the savory memory of it.  
  
She, on the other hand, was not eating at all. He felt propelled to motivate her into doing so but decided against it - she hadn't seemed hungry to begin with. He tensed when she shifted, her stare beckoning for his eyes to draw up again.  
  
"I hope you have a good trip, Heero. How unfortunate we - couldn't finish up here. Did you find what you needed, at the training center, I mean?" She took her water glass in hand - her hand shook, had she eaten lunch at all or forgotten in the fervor of her reading all that afternoon? - slight interest coloring her voice at the mentioning of the center. He shrugged noncommittally.  
  
"Yeah." Juan cleared off his plate and filled his water glass again; the ice cubes cracked in the warmed glass at contact. "Where will you go, Relena?" She smiled softly.  
  
"Earth. I haven't seen mother in - it feels like years. Since father died." She pondered on the time that had passed briefly, amazed at how quickly it passed. Glancing up, below the fringe of her bangs, she added in a friendly tone, "You're welcome to visit. I haven't been there in a while, but mother would welcome you. We would enjoy your company." Again, he shrugged. He doubted the family's life was void of all friendships - Relena still had contacts from school and he knew, from the investigations he undertook concerning her personal life and history, her parents had divulged in close, intimate relationships with adults similar to their standing and character. In short, he had no intention of showing up when there was no shortage of adoring, respected people at their house.  
  
Instead, he glanced down at the empty space where his plate used to be. With deep dislike he acknowledged the feeling of obligation now moving him to at least give her some evidence as to his plans. Like meat given to a very loving dog. Whether he disliked the action or the feeling that made him committ the action more was unclear to him - poking at a crease in the tablecloth, he went ahead anyway.  
  
"A family is moving to another colony - I've taken a seat on their shuttle." There. He offered the goddamn bone. Relena took it.  
  
"Oh." She nodded, trying to understand. "Where to, if you don't - ah, you do mind." The corners of her mouth turned up slightly. "I won't ask then. I don't want this evening to be uncomfortable. Did you enjoy your dinner?" On that note, she turned her fork to a small pile of peas on her plate, yet undented by her hunger. She now seemed perfectly undisturbed, picking at her food and offering him private smiles from time to time. Fifteen minutes later, they left the cafeteria, Relena moving to the garden and Heero to his room to gather his things.  
  
While she waited - having presumed beforehand that Heero would offer some kind of farewell in his wake she decided to guard the grass rather than his doorway - she hovered among the bushes in the garden, the moon lighting them up in ghostly white. She kept the moon to her back, not wanting to turn to its nighttime glare, the blanched, pockmarked surface eerily clear for what she felt should have been a dark hour. She reached out to touch a blossom, feeling the soft bounce of a petal.  
  
Glancing up, she caught Heero's frame in the door leading out to the garden just as he stepped through it, pausing in his approach to consider the picture he saw. A bag bumped his thigh, hung from the shoulder. She asked for the time: nine o'clock. He had ten minutes. Leaving his luggage leaning against the wall he joined her in scrutiny of the shrubbery, not saying anything. She curled her hands together in one lump, fingers pressing into skin, her stare further sinking into the lone little flower on its humpbacked twig.  
  
"I hope you have a good flight, Heero."  
  
"Thanks." He paused in consideration. "You should take more time off." She chuckled dryly, having thought the same at a previous time and laughed to herself about it then as well.  
  
"Though they have no legal right to, I think my partners in crime would abject to that - they might wonder at my love of them if I kept away so." Heero sideglanced her way.  
  
"So what. They travel with their psychiatrists. You don't." She shrugged.  
  
"It's odd, really. You know, Heero, I feel like I carry two people inside me for everyone to identify - the adult and the child-sized version. They can't see me as a person, it's too - confusing." She bent her head a little in thought, her chin dropping to her chest. "They depend on me as I depend on them but...Depends are for old people, I guess," She finished with a small laugh. Heero remained silent. He chose not to react to the joke. Relena felt this to be a decidedly uncomfortable way to end a perfectly good little vacation. She turned to face him, capturing the focus of his eyes again.  
  
"I had a good time. Someday, I will own a hammock, I know that." She smiled, given suddenly to a rare spasm of dreamy thought. "I'll keep it in a neat shack among lots of unread novels, shelves of them." Again she laughed, but without the bitter taste she had at the back of her throat before. Heero nodded as though he were entertaining a private conversation, his stare yet latched onto her face with inquisitive alertness.  
  
"Really, take more time off. The project won't get started for at least another week; all you'd be doing is cooling arguments between everyone." She sighed audibly.  
  
"We'll see...either way.." Relena gestured limply to the door. "You need to go, if I'm not mistaken." Heero stepped back.  
  
"Yeah..." Relena smiled at him with gracious warmth.  
  
"We'll see each other soon, I hope?" He didn't answer, the Zero springing to mind. But he raised his hand in a wave, turned - and left.  
  
The shuttle had just left the platform when Relena let herself back in. She nearly bumped into Juan, who, with a dapper grin, asked if he could yet do anything for her - she only thanked him, informing the man of her departure tomorrow. Once upstairs, she began packing.  
  
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I love writing Dr. J - he's his own brand of spasticness.  
  
I would love reviews for when I come back; although I'm happy to write for the benefit of anyone interested, it is a wonderful feeling to get feedback, especially when swamped with late-midterms. I'm pulling the pity string here. ^ ^ (aaagh - what defines slow death? Having the "I'm walking on suuuunshine, Waaa-aaaah!"-song stuck betweeen your ears). 


	10. Ch10 Hand Me the Wrench

Disclaimer: Usual applies.  
  
*I'm moving to a different city so things are topsy-turvy here - updates will be slower, but I'll continue writing at ACD.  
  
Enjoy. -Becca-W  
  
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The quickest route to Earth resulted in three shuttle flights, one after another in such quick succession Relena had to catch her breath up when she was safely in the next shuttle. A small general transporter took her from the half-colony to a neighboring one, the next shuttle flew her into a Interspacial port and that shuttle - a public one with 200 people aboard - brought her to Earth. To add to the woozy state of her being she had to endure a three hour limousine ride. Home was a distance from the airport and the jet she remembered her family to have used earlier "..was not functioning properly anymore..", as told by her mother in a letter she received at approaching the chauffeur.  
  
When she finally stood on the grounds of her childhood Relena felt all her strength leave her. She gloried in her mother's babying, in not having to carry any of her luggage, not even her carry-on case, and in being led gently up the steps to where a large tea service waited in the family parlor. Relena had been returned to the big house lifestyle she was brought up in; the atmosphere was surprising - so roomy, friendly, grande - but catching; she picked up on old ways almost immediately, beginning with sitting straight throughout tea with her mother and forgetting her exhaustion - such a trifle to begin with, really! - for the time being.  
  
"The flight sounds grisly, Relena. No wonder you look worn."  
  
"You don't fly anymore, mother?" (Good Heavens, crumpets, bagels, fresh croissants, coffee cake, raspberry-lemon tea, very goopy, recent marmalade...nothing green in sight, other than some wrapping).  
  
"No.." Mrs. Dorlian said, a bit sadly. "I prefer to stay here." She took up her teacup again, adding slyly, "Not to worry, I'm kept busy. By the way, there are many who would like to welcome you home. You don't feel up to a party, though, do you? I didn't think so - don't look so wary, Relena! - but the Harletons, Schwannsons, Zthyrs, Lieks - they'll all want to see you at some point. I told them evenings or lunch would be alright for get-togethers. They'll be very disappointed if either of us keep shut up here, and I couldn't turn them away, we've known them for so long....more tea? Aren't you hungry?"  
  
"Not at the moment, thank you. I don't mind, really. I haven't seen them since the funeral."  
  
"They're very proud of you - though, in retrospect, I was to let them tell you so in person rather than blurt out such a weighty secret during something so light as afternoon tea." Her mother smiled to herself. "I do forget sometimes."  
  
Relena glanced into her tea silently, stirring it with a small silver spoon.  
  
"By the way," Mrs. Dorlian handed Relena another slice of poundcake as she talked, "How long is your stay, Relena?"  
  
"Originally, four days...but I think I might stay longer."  
  
"That'd be wonderful." Pause; Clink went the spoons being bumped against the sides of teacups; soft chewing ensued. "This brings me to something else, though - how is your work?"  
  
Relena grinned before she could help herself, softly startling Mrs. Dorlian, though the latter didn't remark on her daughter's expression.  
  
"It's difficult. I had to face up to rejection; the plans that I came up with for colonial reconstruction were not put into action. Oh, you'll hear of it in less than two weeks - whole colonies need to be made, but the people involved voted for reconstructing most of them rather than rebuilding. It's cheaper, of course..." Mother used to ask father that, when he was home. The exact wording, however simple, had been used at the beginning of each such conversations - without noticing it Mrs. Dorlian had addressed, even looked at Relena as she had once at her father! The feeling it gave Relena was astonishingly exhilirating.  
  
"How is it you're involved in this, Relena? Isn't this outside your scope of obligation?"  
  
"Usually, it would be, I think, but in this case the colony government officials are borrowing money from the ESUN, this translating into difficulties between offices. The politics in space are slightly different, but under no circumstance are we to endanger our yet weak relationship with their citizens. Even so, I doubt I would have been called in anyway, had this not meant alot to the President of Earth Sphere United Nations. Until this project gets underway, and, indeed, is finished with success, it will be my main source of occupation."  
  
"You'll be spending much time in space, then?"  
  
"I think so."  
  
Mrs. Dorlian nodded, the teacup perched on her knee untouched for the last three minutes. Relena stared at it for a moment, turned away, focused on the food. They hadn't eaten much but she barely felt hungry. The ghost of hunger, if anything, yet plagued her stomach.  
  
"I forgot to mention, both the Huggles are coming tomorrow, at half past eleven, for an early lunch. Do you mind?" Relena shook her head; no, she didn't mind. "They're looking forward to it so: Mr. Huggle has to attend a seminar at one, so they can't stay long." Mrs. Dorlian peered closely into her daughter's face; setting her tea aside she rose, gesturing for Relena to follow. "Let's get you upstairs, you look tired."  
  
"I don't feel it..."  
  
"You will, in a moment. We - I kept your room much the same." They climbed a wide set of stairs to the next floor, Relena watching sunlight shatter along the length of the banister as she trudged up each step. She felt grimy, probably from the shuttle flights. Her room had a private bath, though - she remembered the open window overlooking the eastern edge of the garden, the floor - part tiles, part floorboards - and the tub, set into the floor like a hot tub, with a ledge to rest one's shoulders on as the sun came up. Her mother opened the door to her room and Relena stepped in without a change of pace, not realizing where she was until she felt her mother's arms around her.  
  
"I need to see to a few things, Relena; dinner is at seven, if you feel at all up to it. Don't feel obligated, though; that starts tomorrow. You'd better sleep, I'm used to eating early in the morning. Perhaps we could go for a ride?" Relena smiled her appreciation, nodding at the suggestion. Sounds wonderful. Her mother, with one last hug, departed, feeling the triumph of motherly contentment.  
  
Relena glanced around, reuniting herself with the bed - a four-poster creation in a soft gray; unlined, unadorned - and the bookshelves lining the walls. Her desk, a matching piece to the bed, sat in a different corner now - or not? She found she couldn't remember the details. No rug - just a wood floor. A large window interrupted the simplicity of the room, bringing in all the colors of the late day, splotching the otherwise light blue-gray of the walls and staining the hands Relena lifted to her face. Turning them palms up Relena stared at the blue-red spreading across her skin...  
  
"I am tired." She said blandly, her eyes losing some of their former vacancy. Her hands dropped to her sides; closing the door behind her she crossed the floor to the window and let the blinds down, shutting herself up in the small domain. What little she had brought along in the first place stood by her bed. Stepping out of her shoes, she padded to the bathroom, the tiles cold and hard. The tiled floor carried a simple design in blue tones checkered with white and shell pink, edged by wooden panels. There stood the tub. There stood the shower. She chose the shower.  
  
It was relaxing. She scrubbed at her skin to relieve herself of the grime collected of her travels. She used a scented shampoo that had her dreaming of raspberries, strawberries, sweet dust.....  
  
Relena went to bed immediately after, not because of physical exhaustion - oh, there was enough of that, to be sure, but the mental strain of the past two weeks fell heavily on that evening more than it had on the past ones. She felt so strained.  
  
So she slept.  
  
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Heero woke to the dragged-out screech of moving wheels; grabbing for the duffel bag in which he had managed to stow away the Zero he crawled from out of the shaft, sprawled out briefly on the pavement of the landing strip. Dragging the bag along after him he crawled in as hunched a form he could manage to the nearest luggage vehicle; there was space yet. He brought himself to his feet, shrugging the duffel bag up with him, and climbed in. Heero pushed himself to the back of the cart, his weight held up by a sturdy suitcase; with his chin on his knees he positioned the duffel bag to sit directly in front of him, effectively shutting out all light. Back pressed against the wall of the vehicle, the corners of the suitcase digging into his skin and the smell of forlorn luggage thickening subtly around him - sweat, dirt, new-bought cloth, moth balls, lavender, spilled wine and fresh mud, all in as understated a form as could be - the sounds of human activity outside muted. The vehicle shuddered than began to move, evenly, in the direction of a shuttle.  
  
The vehicle was brought into the planes' belly, unloaded, luggage careening over the area, and lowered. Heero tumbled headfirst into an empty cello case, still tightly gripping the handles on his duffel bag. While there was still light in the area he struggled to find himself a safe hold, as otherwise he'd be bouncing with every turn the spacecraft made. The dark was not a haven to the unsupervised passenger and as the trapdoor closed he unknowingly squeezed the material of the duffel bag, the hard roundness of the helmet under his fingertips.  
  
Out of sight, out of mind.  
  
Heero's wrists felt the ache acutely after the flight as he had been grappling for appropriate holds during its entirety. The Zero was a tangible presence, a constant companion. Despite his former dependency on it Heero felt the need to protect it, earning himself a number of bruises in his effort to keep luggage from rolling atop the instrument in the duffel bag. Amazingly, the Zero system's nearness failed to usurp him of his mental control - he found himself expecting the machine to have a lasting hold on him whether he was or was not hooked up to it.  
  
He wasn't at all sure - in fact, he disliked - the varying tones of gray he used to judge by rather than the bleak black and white, no inbetween ruling of the Zero. There had always been a level of confusion present even when his mind was being consumed by the Zero; a static murmur in the far reaches of his mentality telling him hurriedly to react differently. Having been one of the few people in the world to ever see the world in the refined, black-and-white view proffered by the machine he knew the difference. He had paid for that knowing. The Zero handed him clear, precise visuals as to who to destroy and who to leave alone - it had been pure mercy not to have to do the judging on his own.  
  
In retrospect, it had been a weakness in and of itself to let himself be pulled in by something so unbelievable. Heero sneered to himself, one hand cupping the full roundness of the helmet through the duffel bag. In his defense, nothing in his life had let him think otherwise. Dr. J as well as the Zero tapped into that - he remembered the feeling of being used. It was probably the one feeling he hated most.  
  
Heero thought further. The people he gravitated to - or had, as these were all characters from past years of confrontation - were extreme characters in a black and white world as well. They knew as little, and as much, as he. But that entire point of view was all too clear - if every obstacle in every person's way was destroyed, the human race would have made itself extinct. The Third World War, or Fourth, depending. (Heero was off the landing lanes and into the airport's underground facilities, avoiding any well-lit or well-guarded area, slipping by security as best he knew how).  
  
He could not deny the triumphs, the eagerness, the happiness he sometimes felt from his servitude with Dr. J: when he had finished a mission, there was success. It was his success. No matter how grueling or cold the doctor had always acted towards him there was the need to please. Heero couldn't remember being reduced to a sniveling secondhand-man, but...Dr. J, slowly clicking the pincers of his false hand, nodding at Heero's account of a completed mission, the sagging bags of flesh under his eyes creasing as the corners of his mouth turned up without mirth or cheer, had been enough to let the young boy know, oh, he had done well.....  
  
(He was now past most security and deemed it well to advance to the first floor, to meet and disappear with the jabbering flood with as little evidence of his appearance on private cameras as possible. He had little doubt as to his success).  
  
Again, he returned to a question he was finding less and less amusing with passing time. What were Dr. J's intentions concerning the Zero? Why did he feel so strongly about this - he was well out of the doctor's reach of control, nothing could persuade him of returning. He was out of danger and yet, had delivered himself to it without quite thinking.  
  
No. He had been thinking. Dr. J couldn't use him. For that matter, Dr. J wouldn't try the machine on himself - his mind, while more cunning and angled than even some of his colleagues, was entirely unprepared for the onslaught. He would use something else. (His conscience could survive another tear in its flimsy expanse, it had taken more of a beating than most - Dr. J barely felt the pang of regret now unless his actions affected him and a host of mostly innocent people). Heero was aware of the past failures - people Dr. J had coerced into attempting to net the Zero's abilities, into accessing and managing what the system could hurl at them. They had all failed in the attempt. The number of failures, always mounting, had begun to daunt even the doctor when he finally came across Heero.  
  
As far as Heero knew, this failure to harness the Zero system resulted in almost immediate death. But only those past failures could tell him something he did not know, but suspected, of the Zero - that the machine could draw out the last breath of a body to a most painful point, extending death until the machine was through with the ragdoll in its clutch and willing to let it go.  
  
(Heero aquired a taxi, directed it the nearest motel).  
  
He wondered whether Dr. J had once tried the Zero on himself - a disservice he thought the rather egotistical gentleman was inclined to. Probably had. Idiot. Dr. J's systematic, private mind would have been scattered at the expansion of mentality the Zero would have brought him to. Seeing the world at that flat, two-dimensional level was freeing and binding, the combination of which would have driven the doctor further into a suspected madness. Heero's base survival skills had enabled him to operate on that level only with the loss of his personal sense of reason - really not that expensive a price at the time - wherease Dr. J would have had to hold onto something akin to such simply to distinguish up from down.   
  
The Zero tended to use and abuse its occupants as well, adding insult to injury in a literal sense, something Heero doubted the doctor could admit to himself. The vanity come of having designed the system gave him the right to think that way, as far as Heero saw it. But what it must feel like to be incapable of controlling a creation so immense that only a savage, hormonal adolescent could reign it in enough to serve a rough purpose....the doctor's pride and self-absorbed character must have taken quite a blow even while he was in an ecstatic frenzy over the Zero's success.  
  
(Heero drummed his fingers on the helmet of the Zero system yet in the duffel bag. He now sat on his bed, alone, the radio set at a low hum set with a static background and the lights on low. His stare becoming increasingly vacant, the drumming of his fingertips a constant beat in the still air, Heero digressed into a state of mummy-like silence, so absorbed in his thoughts that when he finally nodded off in a sleepless doze, his eyes remained open, dilated - and utterly void).  
  
________________________  
  
"Howard, get off that and help me with this."  
  
"With what, man?" Dr. J sneered at the man whose aid he needed, leaving his reply at that. Howard settled his weight on one leg, jutted a hip out so one could see the bone peeking through, and gave the other a level stare. He was browned and shirtless; having always been one to tan easily Howard had settled himself in for a long, permanent retirement on the coast of the Pacific, his most recent residence. The interruption provided by the doctors was a bit of an annoyance - they had the tendency to get on his nerves, regardless of shared history - but he hadn't expected anything more intrusive than that to occur.  
  
Dr. J had gotten nasty over the night. He became upset quickly and raged constantly. This change of mood was unlike him; the doctor had always had a certain grip on himself as he knew of the full impact of his rage where others were innocently unaware. Howard growled under his breath. He'd woken this morning to find several suitcases packed and the doctor on his couch, watching the interspacial news channel Howard had aquired (illegally, for the fun of it). The man's face was as drawn and lined as it was that morning and it was now the afternoon.  
  
The doctor turned from him.  
  
"I can't get that toolbox in the basement. Can't reach."  
  
"Oh. Alright." Howard left for the basement, leaving the sullen doctor to stare at his luggage. When he came back upstairs, he ventured into a conversation he wasn't sure he should have started in the first place. "Leaving?"  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"Okay. Trouble abroad? Anything you want to share?" He handed the doctor the toolbox.  
  
"Yes. Difficulties concerning a former - employee of mine. Nothing you would like to know."  
  
"Listen..if there's anything I -"  
  
"Take my messages, and if some kid calls, don't tell him anything." Howard raised his eyebrows at his colleague's back as the doctor busied himself with some wrenches.  
  
"A kid? What kind of a kid?"  
  
"A weasel with hair, that kind of kid." Turning around, Dr. J left out the backdoor and retreated to the veranda, where he set himself on the easy chair Dr. O so liked to use in the evening. Once he was in a comfortable position - a tray of wrenches and the like at his elbow - he quieted, his eyes fixed on the clawed device replacing what used to be his hand. He clicked it, at first unwillingly, then in the spirit of experimentation. Howard watched from the screened door, his thumbs hooked in the belt loops of his shorts.  
  
The doctor had not come up with the design of this bulky replacement. He hadn't even been involved in setting it. At the time, he had been unconscious for what turned out to be two weeks. The accident resulting in the loss of hand and wrist was a very unpleasant, grisly memory dating far back. Considering his position in the last decade as a rebel, a doctor of unethical methods, a pawn of Oz and an abusive foster parent the claw had been a risky choice when it came to an operation as it relieved him of secrecy and, resultingly, safety. He believed in his career, though, and for the career he needed two working, capable devices, preferrably two hands, or something like them. Therefore, the claw had been joined up to the rest of him in what was a groundbreaking surgical procedure of which all records had been destroyed (the operating surgeons included, though old age, not him, had been the reason for that). That it still worked so fluidly, and would for years to come, was a miracle. Dr. J hoped in the deeply private well of his thoughts that he had studied the claw enough to go through with his plans. He considered himself every bit as capable as that surgeon from long ago, but he had only been able to research and dig into it a little.....whether he could dismantle and put it together again, though....the thought made him too uneasy and he canceled all such thoughts from his mind thereafter.  
  
He started with the screws bolting the outer metal sheeting to his arm. The recent injections of numbing medicine kept much of the pain from disturbing his concentration - the hypodermic needle he'd used lay close by, with two, unused ones beside it.  
  
The procedure started off quickly - the risk he was putting himself at made the doctor a wee bit jittery and eager to finish - but lessened to a more gradual pace as his mind set to dismantle the instrument mentally before he took a wrench or screwdriver to it. Soon enough, he was too involved to notice the jerking and small bites of pain the operation caused - he found he was excited. It was amazing, so exact - he loved precision, he loved calculated risks and genius machinery of which he considered the claw to be a smallscale example.  
  
Once the outer layers had been removed and the blades set aside - so lightweight, the material was exemplary!, most likely some combination of gundanium alloy - he examined each 'tendon', every 'bone'. Magnificent. He was proud to have the odd affliction, the honour of this invention be such an integral part of his mobile person. Dr. J set every piece of the claw in a clear plastic dish unto itself, labeled and sorted with painstaking care (it had taken him a week to get it together). Each dish, container and drawer was set into a toolbox-like carrier, fitted together as the claw had been originally, on his arm.  
  
Once he was past the third stage of dismantling the operation became tricky. Dr. J's back and neck hurt, his shoulders ached, he discovered advanced arthritis in joints yet uninvestigated. Whoever said growing old was bullshitting gold. He. Ooh....that hurt... He intensified his efforts as the operation probed deeper, deeper and farther into the instrument he had come to regard with such respect.  
  
Finally, the stump of his arm lay bare. It didn't look the least bit heroic - or grand - or healed. No one had told him of the scarring, the blackened remains edging a curling path around the forearm, the mangled wrist and smashed bone he could yet see - the ragged, raw flesh, a pasty, old color, like faded silk kept in a moist cell, wrinkled and unnatural. Dr. J was amazed. He had never seen his arm this way. He had somehow always imagined, even felt his old hand to be there, underneath the binding of the claw.  
  
He felt somewhat disgusted at himself for letting himself believe that crap. Old fool. Wiley old fool.  
  
It had been four hours since Howard had watched Dr. J's careful removal of the infamous claw. Now, the retiree came back; he blanched at the sight of the butchered forearm, the disassembled claw in its neat pockets in the carrier. Dr. J seemed at peace, staring calmly at what was now a useless stump. Havind had little forwarning of the act all Howard did was give a low whistle before stuffing his hands into his pockets. In the cooling breeze wafting in from the ocean he now wore a shirt, thin, graying chest hair peeking from the loosened flap of cloth where he left the top four buttons undone.  
  
Dr. J remained unmoving on the balcony for a while longer before moving in.  
  
He had a shuttle to catch and a beard to trim. 


	11. Ch11 I hear voices they wear me down

Disclaimer: Usual applies.  
  
'Human-voiced drones'  
  
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There is no greater offense than to offend. At least, that was what people told her - subtly. Mrs. Dorlian, acting with that rule as guide, had promised a brunch, luncheon, afternoon tea and dinner to friends for each day Relena was visiting. The hours inbetween these rendezvous were their only times of privacy, which they fully enjoyed with or without each other's company. Relena had been a solitary child when out of school, as her mother was in much of her own regular life, so she found ways of passing the flighty hours easily by herself.  
  
By the second day of her stay - two nights since she arrived - she felt the yoke a conservative family fit around the necks of its members with a bemused offhandedness. It was controlling but it did not control her. These were simply the guidelines she followed when at home, under her parents' roof - much like every household globally. She was used to the expectations and responsibilities following these set rules as well, having grown up with them as bedmates.  
  
Ironically, her family fulfilled some stereotypes (there were so many made of rich, conversative christian families it was hard to avoid them all, even for radicals), including the ownership of a small stable and three horses, two mares and a gelding. Mrs. Dorlian had regretfully reported that the two stablehands hired for their care also exercised them daily as she herself had little time to spend on them. Relena hadn't been in a saddle in what felt to be years. She soon found herself on one the morning after she arrived and insisted on long rides each morning until she left for space once more.  
  
Presently, she was on her way back from a two hour ride on the gelding. A surprisingly warm gale of air blew at her ears softly, tossing her hair around her neck from where it poked out her riding helmet. She digressed from a brief gallop to a tight trot, forcing thighs that ached and pinched around the rotund curve of the horse's belly in an effort to keep her weight in the saddle. With evergrowing expectations of grain rations at its box the gelding kept to the pace she set for them eagerly.  
  
She could see the house in detail now. House, ha. Mansion, actually.  
  
Old school chums were scheduled to visit for lunch. Her mother had expressed a gladness, even a relief at seeing Relena reach for those connections - she had almost been afraid for the circles Relena was in, considering her age versus social position. Nothing linked Relena to her fifteen-year-old self anymore, excepting family friends and their offspring. With regard to her youth - a solitary childhood spent under the glow of her parents' support, pride and expectations - Relena had not come into a role unlike one Mrs. Dorlian saw for her earlier. Now as then, she just wished the role came with a steadier group of friends. She never saw a large well of companionship spring for her daughter and doubted she ever would.  
  
"Relena!" Mrs. Dorlian ushered her into the first parlor, a spacious area built for a less recreational purpose than the family's. Relena just saw the flutter of a skirt as a maid retreated from the room through a different door. Guests were supposed to arrive in the next five minutes, if not -   
  
"Mrs. Dorlian and Ms. Dorlian: Margot Kinesburgh, Vera Riles, Yvonne Stattes, Leslie Yinamoto-Miles."  
  
"Thank you, Thomas, send them in, please." Mrs. Dorlian briefly took her daughter's hands in her own, stroking the backs of them with her thumb. "If you don't mind, Relena, I'll excuse myself to the garden," Here she smiled and Relena noted with mild surprise the crowsfeet at her mother's eyes, "Since I haven't had much of a chance to tend to it since your father died." Relena smiled back; though subdued, Mrs. Dorlian was very direct - she had impatience with euphemisms concerning serious topics and chose to address them head-on. The death of a husband did not warrant 'pussyfooting-around.'  
  
At that moment, the four guests entered; Relena could just see, over Leslie's shoulder, as Thomas waved a maid laden down with lunch into the hall behind the small troupe. They greeted Mrs. Dorlian with warm cordiality; when she retired from the room they swarmed around Relena, petting and talking.  
  
"How are you?"  
  
"You look rosy, 'been out for a walk?"  
  
"Your mother looks so - healthy, considering - "  
  
"Is that blackberry tea I smell?"  
  
"Oh, she's alright, really - "  
  
"We miss you, especially during class!"  
  
"I was out riding, it's such a nice day - "  
  
"You come up in class discussions and the teachers act so - "  
  
"It's so funny, they're confused and - exhilirated, I guess, at the same time!"  
  
"Leslie, you cut your hair!"  
  
"Ooh, it IS blackberry! - anyone want a cup?"  
  
"Isn't this a little short? I'm going to grow it out for a while, I'm just not - "  
  
"I'd love a cuppa' tea, thank you, Margot."  
  
"I know, I like my hair long, too - "  
  
"Aren't you going to come to any of the school functions? - "  
  
"Does Mrs. Edder still teach?"  
  
"Oh, don't you go off on that dance, what a ridiculous school function - don't go to it, Relena, pure rubbish - "  
  
"Mrs. Edder's leaving in four days, now that you brought it up - "  
  
"Oh, what a pretty room - doesn't your mother have one of these, Vera?"  
  
"I can't, I've got to go back to space in less than a week - "  
  
"Mrs. Edder, that old doddard - "  
  
"Iladra, right? Yeah, mother keeps her's in a shoebox under her bed, she' s still looking for - "  
  
"Yvonne, if you're not going to call Mrs. Edder a doddard to her face, quit saying it! - "  
  
"Less than a week? Masochist!"  
  
"My father wanted to come, but I told him absolutely not, all he ever talks about are the Treaty of Canal and interspacial war-agreements - "  
  
"Would anyone like to sit down? - oh, thank you, Margot, if we're out of tea, I'll call the maid."  
  
"I would, if Mrs. Edder hadn't tutored my father in his university studies - wotta blowhard! - "  
  
"Yvonne, be quiet!"  
  
"I'll get more tea."  
  
"You don't have to, Margot - "  
  
"Class is so boring now, what with the new semester - what's space like, any meteor showers? - "  
  
"Oh, I don't mind - I love your house!"  
  
"Really, though - oh, there we go. Thanks, Liddie." The girls quieted only slightly when the maid came in with more refreshments, piping up again once she had closed the door behind her.  
  
"Does your mother collect these, Relena? - I didn't know Iladra made so many 'Maidens of Virtue'!"  
  
"About those meteor showers - "  
  
"I'll pour us more tea, alright? Vera, don't spill your cup, it's tipping!"  
  
"Oh, oops, thanks, Margot.."  
  
"I have seen some meteor showers, but only at a distance. They're very bright."  
  
"That's because of the dust and other grit that flies with them, Relena - "  
  
"Leslie, are you studying them? - "  
  
"No sugar, thanks, Margot - "  
  
"They're my out-of-class astronomy project. Vera, you're about to tip your cup again - "  
  
"Oh dear... - "  
  
"Yvonne, do you still like marble cake?"  
  
"Ooh, yes, I do, and Margot? - Does your father - "  
  
"I hear your mother's campaign is going well, Yvonne - "  
  
" - yummy - "  
  
" - Oh-ha, Relena, you've opened up a can of worms now!" - "  
  
"Pardon?"  
  
"Vera, your cup - "  
  
"There we go, saved! - thanks, Leslie.. - "  
  
"Gods, mum's alright, but father's been tearing his shorts up out of stress - of all the politicians in the family, my mum's the first female, and he's not taking well to her success - "  
  
"Yvonne comes to school - "  
  
"Trashed, if I may say - " ("Margot, be quiet, honestly.").  
  
"Mum and I got drunk together - "  
  
("More than once!"; "Will you be quiet? - okay, twice, only twice, though! Out of stress, 'cause of father!").  
  
"At least you weren't reported, Yvie - "  
  
"True, that would've blasted.. - "  
  
"Let's not talk politics - besides, Relena hears it everyday, don't you, Relena?"  
  
"I'm fine, thanks for your consideration, Margot."  
  
"Oh, Relena, remember Veronique Stratton?"  
  
"Oh dear - " ("What is it, Vera, spill a cup?"; "No, no...Veronique Stratton, though..."; "Oh...I see... - ").  
  
"What a - "  
  
"Don't say it, Yvonne."  
  
" - pill - I was only going to say...."  
  
"My memory's hazy, who was she?"  
  
"The irish ice queen."   
  
"Well, her father's running - "  
  
"Sweet girl, you know - sharpens her fangs daily, that kind of thing."  
  
" - for some position in the South Pole."  
  
"She's steaming mad."  
  
"I find it funny."  
  
"It is funny."  
  
"Suits her, the South Pole."  
  
"Oh, that redhead?!"  
  
"Do you remember - "  
  
"What do you know of - "  
  
"Careful, it's tipping again! - "  
  
"Isn't her mother - "  
  
"Yeah, the divorce seemed to start it all - "  
  
"Now you remember."  
  
"Leslie, did your father get that contract for the Strait's Dam? - "  
  
"Ooh, that journal entry I wrote for the Banker's Magazine of Italy? They accepted!" ("Congratulations, Vera.", "Sounds fantastic.", "I'll toast to that - a la raspberrry tea!").  
  
"If you're not careful, Relena, you're mother'll get back on the market - "  
  
" - and you'll never recognize the house again - "  
  
" - It'll be like Penelope with her suitors, only less barbaric and without Ulysses." ("Quit the Greek allusions, Margot.")  
  
"I think I can trust her, thanks - "  
  
"Ha! My mother loved post-divorce, about two years after it happened, anyway - "  
  
"Don't talk that way, widows are sacred - "  
  
"Is that an old grammaphone?".....................................  
  
________________________________________________________________________________________________  
  
Heero squirmed in his seat on a bed yet unmade, its sheets and blankets heavily rumpled as though something had rolled in it, intending to relieve itself of a severe itch. The pillow lay askew on the floor. The curtains let in enough light to remind its occupant that daylight had broken in; sunlight stole into the room like one forbidden to show face after a great humiliation. Heero had sneered at it earlier before smoothing out his expression into one of extreme indifference and vacancy. He pulled up a chair, positioned it in front of him so its back touched the wall opposite, and set the Zero system's helmet piece on its lap.  
  
Resting his elbows on his knees, chin propped up in the shallow bowl formed by his palms while his fingers drummed against his face, Heero stared at it. Shafts of light glinted over the helmet; it seemed to wink at him. He kept on staring at it, he stared at it for an hour on an empty stomach whose growling pitch was ignored. The longer he stared at it the sharper became the image; he recognized the function of some of the cords and baubles and buttons decorating the body, connected to the helmet. The room became heavy with unturned air and he was made to open a window. Someone knocked at the door briefly and he told them to come back later before placing the "Do Not Disturb" sign on the door handle. Still the room smelled like him, his clothes and the sheets held the odor of his sleeping body - sweat combined with something like old leather, soil and cut grass, and the mushroomy-smell of hair two days unwashed - and WHY DID HE KEEP THAT GODDAMNED THING?!  
  
He considered it. The question as to Dr. J's reasons for wanting to possess it had left his morning earlier and left him with an even more disturbing question: why did he keep it? Not only did he carry it with him, but he did so with caution and care, he hid it, faithfully kept it safe, it, he kept it safe, he did! Idiot! Masochist! Hypocrite! - no, the zero was shouting that at him, laughingly, scoldingly, patronizingly, sweetly - he hated it. The root of hate based against it buried deep into his soul, a jagged scar running through his character like a crack in cement. Heero despised the Zero. He despised it for reasons bigger than he could really understand - the Zero had messed with him, but he had been so misused before that the thought didn't incur wrath, only a numbing pain. The Zero had possessed him, but he only felt a great aggravation at having been so treated - no, the anger didn't really come from that, either...  
  
The Zero had made a promise to simplify this frustrating, depraved world of hurt that Heero lived in. That promise, so shallow Heero was surprised he hadn't seen this before, had tied him to that thing. It could give Heero sight and mind incapable of being abused or misused; it honed his senses so sharply that taking the helmet off threw a blue film over his eyes and dimmed what he saw and heard firsthand. The black-and-white world mentioned before occured to Heero; it had been safe, direct, deliciously clear-cut. Actions, not emotions, defined one's place in the world there. Emotions influenced one's actions, degraded a person's character. They were bad. He hadn't any need for them. Emotions hadn't played a wonderful part in his life before and the thought of ridding himself of their grasp was sinfully tempting. He took it, he made a wild monkey swing at it. Never to be confused or frustrated or betrayed! Never to have to take time to decide matters he wanted nothing to do with, a removal of private torture! It was this, THIS PROMISE, broken, that had stung Heero, made him bitter against the Zero, its jagged edges cast into the scrapes on his beaten body ever time he had to remove himself of this other level of consciousness.  
  
Humanity seemed difficult to achieve when one had so few good examples of it, or so he thought. The attempts he made were thus proving fruitful, but he still had a hairy suspicion - it wouldn't last. Something would break. Maybe life was like fine china; lasting but easily shattered. Perhaps Heero was just bullshitting himself. What the Zero, and Dr. J, and all those other, colorful characters he had met up with - what they taught him in basic survival they failed to mention the things beyond one's present existence, a future, hopefulness. Hope seemed to be at the core of everything, somehow; it was becoming an irritating word. Quick, short, with that round-mouthed 'o'-sound and the sloping 'p', full of meaning. There had to be other stuffs making up that core he was searching for, nosing his was through.  
  
Perhaps hope made up one of many bits around a core - like the tissue making up a body organ. It seemed more likely. Or was that more bullshitting?  
  
God, he could sit here and throw questions at himself for an eternity, what would that solve. The Zero still sat in front of him; he wondered why he didn't have some urge to throw it, smash it, stomp, trash, mess with, smush, squash, plunder it - he had almost expected a Jekyll-Hyde transformation to take place in which he would briefly take on the character of one wild, reckless beast capable of ending that spiteful machine. Oh, crap. Giving the Zero a personality would not aid him in finding answers, yet he was calling it spiteful...  
  
Keep your attention on the problem at hand, you drone.  
  
Fuck you.  
  
..'S uncalled for....  
  
Heero's wish - wish? Need? Want? He had yet to specify - to discover the doctor's reasons for demanding the Zero waned, eventually. He had no intention of being found, by the doctor or by anyone he was familiar with. Not coming in contact with the doctor kept him from finding this out. He was okay with that as the question held less shine than before, and the answer had decreased in importance. He had it, HE had the Zero, didn't he?! Well, damn, Heero, how about figuring out what YOU'RE to do with the thing now, ne'?  
  
Plugging it up to an arcade seemed a grande idea, but...nah. He remembered the chilling nightmares aiding his despondency in early adolescence when he first used it. Dr. J had referred to them as....the words didn't immediately jump to mind, the thought quickly pushed to the side by a tortured throng of others bursting to the surface...  
  
"Hurt? You call that pain? Quit shitting yourself and get back in there!"  
  
"The Zero's bringing you down because you're not letting it have any control. Let it control you more. It'll help suppress your anger, channel it. Once you've got that, you can further the partnership.."  
  
"Machine and human - one of the most celebrated and dependent relationships in existence. And the Zero - it is the epitome of machinery. Can you match it?"  
  
"I'll beat you senseless next time - in one month, I promise you, you'll make no more mistakes. Believe me, the Zero's less forgiving - a few bruises will be a delight to attend to once it's purged itself of you."  
  
"Not even the Zero's questioned my methods, and you won't, either. Ever."  
  
"I don't have the patience for your hormones, boy, that's why. No go away."  
  
"Quit muttering to yourself, Heero - what, are you gossiping with yourself? Talking to yourself is one of the first signs of insanity. You're not retarded? Not a retard? What, not a retard, really? If you're going to say anything, speak up, idiot!"  
  
"What the hell do you think you're doing? Let it guide you, boy - you're nothing more than an electrical socket for the Zero, at my disposal; so don't waste my time."  
  
"You little pissant - Oz's stupidity can't match your's in potential. Get the medkit - 'bout time you learned to attend to yourself."  
  
"Paws of the machine. Here's a rag - start cleaning."  
  
"To know the Zero inside and out, you work it and fix it on your own - if it takes you all night."  
  
"Broken wrist? I'll crack your knees if you don't get back in there!"  
  
"I hate it when people cry. 'Reveals what blubbering sob-stories they actually are. If you ever get started on me, boy, I'll kill you to save myself the irritation."  
  
"Bones heal and get stronger when they break - at this rate, you can crack cans open with that nose of yours."  
  
"Little japanese runt, don't give me orders! Is Oz channeling commands to you mentally? You clairvoyant, jap? Then shut the fuck up! I'm drunk if and only if I say so - who the fuck made you my judge and jury?!"  
  
"Bother me with that again and I'll take a wrench to your head."  
  
" - crack your skull if you - "  
  
" - think pain's bad? Just wait - "  
  
" - What future? What past? Live for the moment, it's all you've got - and it's all you've got."  
  
"There are pieces of the human body I consider unnecessary - such as that tailbone of yours. Now get that back in there, pisser!"  
  
"People are replacable. Soldiers and machines alike, though, are all the same and even more replacabole. You're simply the prototype."  
  
"Clear your mind, idiot! This isn't a kamikaze mission! What have I told you about feeling in there? The cockpit's for the brain, not the heart - it'll gut you! - "  
  
"Emotions weaken your will - "  
  
"Concentrate, and maybe we'll get this emotional tick of yours smoothed out."  
  
"Manuals are for wimps. Instructions are for wussies. Gut instinct, Heero - use your gut instinct."  
  
"Ha! I'd pay to be part of the audience in a match between the two of us, Heero - we're alike, just at either end of the same line. I could outwit you, but you - you have a savageness quite unlike civilized humans usually do. I've never had a strong streak of it. It's what'll save you later, once harnessed by me, of course."  
  
"Life beats the shit out of all of us, Heero - you think I aged this badly naturally? (Rhetorical). It takes a club to the average mentality, but for the tougher strains of humanity it needs a crowbar." Dr. J's grin rang clearly in the pained depths of Heero's mind as he recalled the moment; as an afterthought his mentor added, "The Zero is our crowbar, boy. We're lucky. We know our enemies. Know your enemies at all times, Heero. They make the best friends."  
  
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Please review. ^ ^ 


	12. Ch12 I'm faithful out of spite

Disclaimer: Usual applies.  
  
I'm back! YEEEESSSS!  
  
Moving right along - here's a fleshy chapter, fresh out of the works. Another's coming up in just a few days. Something very nice happened; we got a new family computer, so I get the OLD computer - too old for internet, but perfect to write when I want to. In my room. A computer. *0_0*(!!). Please, please review - I need to see how things stand with readers vs. this chapter (yes, it's been that long). I have confidence, though - things are really starting to move, as you'll see soon.....  
  
Enjoy. - Becca-W  
  
________________________________________________________________________________________________  
  
Keira swallowed, the sound loud in the shuffling quiet around her. Thom glanced over his shoulder, miscalculated, but not misplaced fear and repulsion present in his expression.  
  
"Don't cry. Just don't." Keira watched him grab for a sweater, then all his sweaters. She controlled the shudders she felt coming on, and the sobbing she knew would follow a door slammed in her face, shutting her out of her own apartment (now, anyways). She watched the curve of Thom's spine under his shirt as he leaned, still bent over the bed, to a set of drawers; yanking one by one open he retrieved all his other possessions - he didn't have much. Everything was stuffed into a scuffed-up suitcase. Keira had once tried to carry it; she was too small.  
  
She stood squirming next to the doorway, waiting for him to snap the suitcase shut and turn around, so he would see her there, next to the exit, and perhaps feel some obligation to give a farewell, or give her a "Next time, I'll warn you in advance". A pat, a shoulder-squeeze, a friendly arm-swat. Keira's hands rose to curve around the base of her neck; he'd give her nothing. Her fingers slipped loosely around soft skin, looking on with wide, thrilled, scared eyes. Thom hastened, glancing furtively for anything he'd overlooked (he took longer packing than she, always had) then shutting the suitcase as carefully as he could while being swift about it. Keira gulped again, guilt immediately rising in her eyes and coloring her faded face as he stared at her with an impatient air of dislike, but even more so - this caused her to gulp again - pity.  
  
"Oh, God..." He yanked the suitcase from the bed and set it on the floor, adjusting his grip on the handle. "Keira..." She shook her head, almost stubbornly, her mouth pursing.  
  
"I won't cry. Just..." She shrugged. "Go?...."  
  
"Yeah." Some sense of kharma or the like crept into his mind; Thom relaxed a little, his shoulders unhunching. "Uh, you'll be fine." Something in her hardened, a wisp of sarcasm curling around her tongue, threatening to act either as a tourniquet or a whip.  
  
"Sure. Okay." She choked out, turning paler with her response.  
  
Thom picked up his suitcase. Keira glanced at the doorhandle but didn't reach for it. When the door stood open, she stared at his shoes - nice, clean sneakers - and Thom at her head, the uneven part in her hair. With an unsettled, half-voiced grunt ("Gruh...uhm..."), he left. After a few minutes (who knows, right?....) Keira shut herself in the apartment. Her aimless wanderings led her through its three rooms (four, if you count a separate toilet) several times before she came to the den. She slouched on the floor and went through a pile of small discs, gulping repeatedly, determination offering the only spark in her expression as she was dead set against crying.  
  
"Shoot." She muttered, sitting back. After further thought, she slowly added, "...fuck." All the discs in front of her - film discs, or FCs - belonged to her four-year-old sister, who had visited over the weekend six months ago. Delia (her sister) was very forgetful and her older sister just as much; no matter how much Delia cried for her collection of FCs over the phone, Keira hadn't sent them back (though she promised to, over and over again). After some consideration Keira leaned over and sifted through the pile.  
  
She slipped a disc into the player; the connected screen lit up. Still gulping from time to time she leaned back into a furry beanbag. She yearned dramatically for the comfort of a guaranteed happy ending. Halfway through the film, in mid-gulp, she wondered at Delia's good taste; princess-prince, pink-and-blue, white for wedding - red for love, gooey-mushy, sweet-as-sweet-sixteen, mature-adolscent lo-o-ove action - and the prerequisite Happy Ending-package-deal, complete with faux-fur rabbits, golden-hooved animals with british accents and a melting-rainbow background.  
  
When it was over it dawned on her that the day had aged; it was one in the afternoon. With a glance out the window Keira realized she needed to get out. Grabbing a jacket from the coat rack she left her small apartment, took the stairs three at a time out into the open. Once past the front entrance she glanced up, over her shoulder; the five-stories of its height loomed over her, a creamy white resulting of its facing the sun. Shaking her head clear of her disastrous morning, Keira hastened to a park across the street - a large, shady affair at least five blocks long.  
  
Keira passed a dog and its owner on the way: a collie, its nose curved ever so lightly as it followed some odor, though its owner seemed impatient to leave.  
  
The trees opened into a grassy plain void of everything but a few park benches; most of them were inhabited by people in twos and threes. One bench off to the right offered singular companionship in the shape of some young kid, the collar of his coat upturned, hands jammed into the pockets. She meandered over to that bench.  
  
"Mind if I sit down?" She asked. He didn't react; she felt a little miffed at being disregarded and was about to walk away when the kid finally shrugged. She paused, mouth turned up in an undecided half-sneer. Still feeling the effects of the snubbing Keira sat at the far end of the bench, gazing out across the stretch of grass and neat shrubbery in front of them. Her side of the bench was cool, shadowed as it was, and glossy to the touch as though it had been painted recently. Despite herself and the obvious plea for privacy in her bench-companion, Keira felt curious. Unfamiliarity enticed her. Strangers made her bold. After only a few minutes Keira glanced over, at once blushing self-consciously as she looked him over, her stare open.  
  
His roughly cut hair threw shadows over much of his face. A tan of old times took to his skin, paling as though he saw sunlight only at intervals. Other than that, all Keira could discern of her fellow benchwarmer was a set of long, near black eyelashes, part of eyes that never seemed to blink. He wore an oversized winter coat with the collar turned up until it brushed along his jaw bone. Through his slump she detected slender shoulders, the material of his clothes hanging on his gangly form. Stealing one more look at the unfamiliar presence she turned back around, losing her mind to the feel of her sneakered feet rubbing against her ankles, the way the grass grew only an inch and half, the long eyelashes of her unknowing companion...  
  
She stuck her hands in the pockets of her jacket, going into a severe slump. She found some stale crumbs in one pocket. Pulling some out, she threw the scatterings onto the pavement. The figure next to her performed a small jerk at the movement - her arm languidly thrown to the side, flinging old cherry bread crumbs onto the pavement - and she caugh sight of his eyes - large with youth, a strangely innocent adolescence combatting the alarm in his expression, now hazy where they had been piercing and unseeing - he glanced at her with a wariness reminiscent of Thom.  
  
"Uhm...hi, I...hi." His expression softened into vacancy - was she already losing his attention?!  
  
"Erk....hello, hi - "  
  
She absorbed his stare, feeling vaguely happy at looking straight into his face.  
  
"Uhm - do you come here often?"  
  
"No."  
  
"Oh." The face turned to her not charmed with her efforts - there seemed little activity inciting an expression at all.  
  
"I don't live around here." He offered dumbly.  
  
"Oh....I do..." She pointed in the vague direction of her apartment complex. "Over there." She got the feeling he couldn't care in the least. She pushed her hands between her knees in an effort to keep them occupied but they wouldn't stay there. They tended to flutter when she talked, trying to hold a person's attention or - Heaven save her! - from a whole group of people. Conversations always made people vie for the lead role, the largest, most commanding presence, jumping their cues too early in what was not supposed to be a competition. She never felt at ease in a group when she offered some direction to the conversation; a flitting, mad little thought brought her back to the young man - 'Thom never liked my stuttering, either, he didn't understand to how help it...' Oh lord, her hands, wavering, shaping things in the air in front of her!  
  
"My dad.." She cleared her throat. "My dad made me live there. He lives in the next neighborhood, and he wanted me nearby when I went to university." She nodded at the young man, feeling a little helpless. "Um, do you go to university?" He stared at her, not blinking, and she felt her face go hot under his unkind, constant look. Then he nodded curtly.  
  
"I was, but I'm on leave."  
  
"Oh. See, dad's a little protective." She laughed, a brittle sound that made her voice sound tinny. "He's even paying for my apartment! But I like it here. I like Maliengradh - that's the university on 54th and Hamen, you know? It's my first year - already second semester, though. They've got this incredible astronomy course - that's my major." She cleared her throat again. "What were you studying?"  
  
"Mechanics and philosophy." He said after a pause. That made her laugh - this loud, abrupt sound that flared from her throat - and he shuddered in surprise. She swung one leg onto the bench and hooked an arm around it, propping her chin on her knee while she spoke.  
  
"Why did you stop?" He shrugged. She felt a little guilty for pressing and tried a different approach. "It's an interesting mix. How far did you get before - ..."  
  
"Six semesters." She cocked her head, astonished.  
  
"What? But you look so young! How old are you?" He paused.  
  
"Seventeen."  
  
"What?! My God! That's amazing." She shook her head clear of the clutter in her mind. "I'm nearly twenty-six and I've got two years to go before finishing grad school. You see...hum." She grew embarrassed, first at what she had almost confessed to the kid, then at her prolonged, conspicuous silence. If one stared with enough concentration, one could identify the fibers of the woody material making up the bench - a synthetic stuff that looked like pine, but was naturally water-resistant and as steely as oak. (Another attempt at protecting natural resources that had finally succeeded with this new replacement for wood, now used in all outdoor commodities that once involved lumber).  
  
Keira had once seen her reflection when she blushed. The tip of her nose grew pink; the flush spread out across her cheeks, stopping at her ears. It was a gradual process but one she could feel. She could feel it happening now.  
  
Glancing up, though, confirmed something she had begun to suspect subconsciously, the feeling coming across in a trust that formed between herself and him. The very facts that made him a stranger to her made him a confidante of sorts. The feeling that he cared little had long flown from her mind; its absence unfettered her struggling tongue. Her speech became more fluent, nearly unbroken, as she related some of her story to him in an effort to connect their conversation to their very beings. The unusual, somehow flattering innocence she found in him made a compliant partner to his evident oddness, his coarse, unexperienced boyishness and his altogether startlingly refined mind. Only probing, unknowing fingers could have unwrapped that part, could have pulled the good from the well-cloaked being that was this character. Keira, despite the age difference separating them, was a most gullible, ignorant person - it was that exact ignorance that enabled her to find what she wanted.  
  
Something that had been tugging at her for want of attention made Keira's eyes go round.  
  
"Oh my God! I'm so sorry, I got caught up - my name's Keira." She held her hand out for him and he took it slowly. She gave a single shake, her hand steady. (Strong European accents in character, manner, physical features, reason: underlying German flush to her speech, a deepening of the 'r's in her words, the handshake. Child of a single parent, reason: she hasn't mentioned her mother or spouse).  
  
"Heero." The boy introduced himself. Keira nodded. A developing line between her eyebrows deepened as she regarded him thoughtfully. A feeling of recklessness developed in her.  
  
"Heero, do you have to be home by any certain time?" His eyebrows rose in what she took to be a bemused expression. He shrugged.  
  
"Not really."  
  
"Cool. See that shop with the pink lettering? Next to it is a cafe. 'Join me for some coffee?" The offer was casual and friendly but Heero felt himself balking at her efforts. An itch he couldn't reach far for had been making him jumpy all day. He pushed the irritation out of the way, accepted the offer for coffee. He hadn't had good coffee in a while. Did it have good coffee? Very good, we - I visit nearly daily. Wouldn't you believe it, my dad actually insists on an 'allowance'! Keira's gurgling laugh drew forth; he watched her tame it with a hand over her mouth.  
  
She was a little taller than he was, the impression encouraged by the long stretch of neck she bared, her hair cut just below her chin, curling out at the sides, her torso as narrow as Heero's. (Practices dance, reason: position of shoulders and feet in walking). Outwardly she had some gradually intensifying nervousness, a display of nerves plucked raw. What natural poise she possessed was disrupted by a deepening sense of dependency, a confusion that wrought in her a constant state of anxiety. It creeped along the bones in her hand, apparent in the small twitches of shoulder and head.  
  
The cafe was warm inside, built to have many private nooks for customers to settle into. The ceilings of these rooms were oval in shape, sometimes domed, with exaggerated furniture and carvings in the woodwork of the windows and door frames. Slender staircases led up to them, these connecting to each other at odd moments in the two-story building, two even crisscrossing over the heads of customers waiting for their orders. Rather than choose a nook Keira brought Heero to a sunken in part of the ground floor, occupied by second-hand leather couches a bright purple.  
  
Sitting down, the lack of the light reminding Heero of a cavern, Keira faced him with a freshly determined expression setting her face. She had her mug poised on one knee, looking taller than she was in actuality due to the length of her limbs, gangly arms, somewhat spindly legs...Heero glanced at her face when she began speaking, her eyes engaging his in activity during the conversation.  
  
"I know the owner, of this place. He asked the students from the carpentry classes to help in building a coffee house, a few years ago. Yentin - he graduated before me - got me involved. Once carpentry was involved the art students and someone who worked in a second hand furniture store pitched in - now we have this. It's a point of pride with us, though we're expected to get our coffee from here and only here. Mr. Janssen gets jealous if we don't." Though her words spoke of a ridiculous debt pride shown through her voice, lightening the leaden quality Heero had heard in it so far. "My boyfriend, he even helped..with - oh..ughhuh...." The cup on her knee drooped enough to spill and she quickly mopped the splash of coffee from her knee-socks.  
  
Her face had fallen once her thoughts had returned to the coffeehouse's origins. In the thickening quiet of a stretching, awkward silence between the two her expression grew stricken, stiff around the mouth, her eyes a little wild. Heero noticed they were getting swollen, glassy with tears. After a moment more Keira set the mug on a nearby nightstand, stared at the opposite wall, chewed at the side of her mouth. She gulped, hasty, the sound thick and wadded in her throat.  
  
Then she crumbled in front of Heero's eyes, arms suddenly thrust forward on her knees to prop her face up, shoulders shuddering in what was both the loudest and quietest sobbing he had ever been witness to. With her face pressed into the undersides of her wrists, she gave abrupt, partly-suppressed wails before suffocating the sound by biting her mouth (Heero could hear her teeth click sometimes).   
  
Odd blubberings that Heero deciphered as "I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" made its way inbetween her sobs now and then. It continued for several minutes Heero found most uncomfortable, minutes in which he didn't take any coffee, letting it cool past the point he liked, and in which he sat as stiff-jointed as she had just a turn ago. He let his thoughts pool, noting her former, slightly troubled behavior and his quiet, if unenthusiastic presence - clearly not enough to earn this type of reaction from anyone. He was yet undecided betweem leaving while she was unaware or staying and hoping she would stop - when she collected herself enough to sit up and wipe at her face.  
  
"I'm sorry - oh, I cry so horribly - Thom never liked it, he always felt so useless when I cried, but I can't keep it down, it's a beast - aggh, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, oh God, I don't even know you - just barely - oh God - Thom said he felt like a trapped - uggh, something, rabbit? - he broke up with me! He just - after three years - he just - three years! - a rabbit?! I made him feel like a rabbit in a beartrap, what? Oh God, he broke up with me!" She stifled the sobs Heero had been expecting; she grabbed for the napkin that had accompanied her coffee and pressed a dry, fibrous fold to her bottom eyelid. "Thom, oh - he - I guess - I was so - OH, he had a slow temper, but - I guess he had enough - how could he compare me with a beartrap?! Uggh, I hate this, I hate this I hate this I hate thi - oh-houuggh..." Dab dab, wipe. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. I can't believe I'm unloading this on a stranger!" She gave a warbling, wet chuckle. "Look at me, floating in my tears! Brother, once I get started....."  
  
She recovered a little only to wheeze with new-bred tears creeping from her eyes again.  
  
"He - I - oh, how could I, it still cuts me - oh, Thom - but he stuck with me, I can't believe he stuck with me, even now - why'd he leave after all that, after sticking it out through both pregnancies, why would he leave? He must have gotten sick with me - I'm not depressed, he's the one on pills, but I cry more than anyone he knew (he said)! I - and now - Lord, I can't stop - it's like something wet bobbing its head up against my esophagus, you know? I - oh, uggh, Thom, just left, and he always packs things so neatly, his shirts were not folded like he likes them, he's going to be mad when he stops to check - how can I remember that? Why do I remember that? Uggh, I hate this!" Heero had the sense to exchange the soaked bit of tissue in her hand for the napkin he found under his own mug. He watched, grossly fascinated, his expression an astounded blank. She took it with a nod, the corners of her mouth wobbling between a smile of thanks and more half-formed sentences produced in a waterfall of tears.  
  
"I - two years! He was so helpful, Heero, Thom was so patient - helpful - and - " She hiccoughed and pound her chest once. " - and I - we weren't so careful, see - just this morning, 'S'why I'm like this, I'm not always walking around sobbing on the shoulders of people I meet in the - just this morning! God, it feels much sooner!" She grabbed at the tissue as though fondling the pain in her own body, her eyes unseeing as they stared around recklessly through a wall of flowing tears. " - and - and - oh!"  
  
Heero, meanwhile, had formulated several things to do that could act as solutions to this problem (was it a problem? A situation, a sticky situation even, but a problem?): he could excuse himself to the bathroom, thereby freeing himself up for at least a few minutes.  
  
Or, he could excuse himself and just leave, go back to the Zero in whose company at least he - oh blast it all to hell, the Zero for company?!?  
  
He could get his coffee warmed up, in so doing both freeing himself up for a few minutes as well as prepare responsibly for the onslaught in Keira he yet expected to surface.  
  
He could....ha, instructive advice, him, instruction? With a quick sideglance he felt assured, all the instruction he could give would be to knock her over with some dull object and let her sleep it off.  
  
He could offer support.....except he might find himself a sort of rebound fixture begging to be nailed, like some bull's eye for the aggrieved.  
  
Any number of small-term solutions could be found by just spilling the near-full mug and going off to get cleaning help.  
  
Inwardly, Heero began to grumble, momentarily clearing his mind and ear of Keira's issues. He felt responsible now that he was in her company, though he also felt as though he had been roped in selectively for this express purpose. But the strange mixture of guilt and not wanting to go the motel room he had booked resulted in his staying on, for the time being at least.  
  
Now having made a decision - grumble grumble huff - he turned towards her, prepared to stun her with his listening ear and readily blank expression. It set her off, hopefully in a good way. A canvas to paint her history on, someone to meet only once, a rented crutch.  
  
Being a rented crutch was, in the end, much preferrable to being the target dummy. At least he'd made his mind up about that, firmly.  
  
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The window sill pressed into her forehead but it didn't bother her sleep, a deep, unrestful dose. The window itself was closed, its view of space denied the audience in the space shuttle. The few travelers in the shuttle - parts of Relena's team, now rounding up after their week-long break for the next step in their plans, as well as a few bureaucrats coming for the show - either slept or read. Bullman, a district attorney new to the group of people in support of Relena's practices and in search of furthering his career through their aquaintance, was looking over one of the colony newspapers. They offered several on board the shuttle flight, two of the three most widely read in space as well as a hefty newsletter from the ESUN.  
  
Bullman scratched on itch behind his ear, the bristles of his short-cut hair brushing against his fingertips. He glanced at the nails of his hand in a moment of blank thought, their white, slightly jagged cuticles, the rough swells of the nails themselves. A diplomat he met two weeks ago - a conference in Berlin - had surprisingly well-groomed hands. He had been perceptive enough to note Bullman's interest in his hands and, keen on the other's own unkempt state, remarked, somewhat pointedly, that once one entered a public office grooming was most important. It created the difference between the politician and his counterparts in government.  
  
"Have you ever gotten a manicure?" He asked with such stern demeanor Bullman took it to mean this was how he presented himself to all.  
  
"Not in a few years." The man nodded gravely, the action comic but to which Bullman kept a straight, serious expression.  
  
"It's what my PR agent suggested when I first ran for office. I've kept it up since then." He glanced at his nails, a very pale shell-pink, much like the nose of a newborn kitten. Bullman nodded, and he planned on taking up the habit. It hadn't happened yet, though.  
  
He glanced to the pair at the back isle seats, Relena Darlian and her mother, Mrs. Darlian. The pair, though apparently not at all related, held some likeness to the other. The younger was slight in build with much the same, light olive skin tone as the older, though Mrs. Darlian had a heavier bone structure and Relena had thin bones. One read, the other gazed through half-opened eyes at the seat opposite. Her hands lay in her lap, dismissed, palms up.  
  
Mrs. Darlian glanced at her daughter.  
  
"Any thoughts?" Relena shifted to look her mother in the face.  
  
"We're going to have a very long conference on colony reconstruction." She rubbed the flat of her palm against one eye to spurn away all thoughts of dozing. "Then I've got to attend to my other, regular duties - like rewriting the Contract of the Comity of Interspacial Nations over telecom with my counterparts on Earth and organizing a report to send to ESUN Vice President Colman about my efforts, list in comprehensible order all suggestions (and, in the margins, compromises) concerning aforementioned Project 'Colony Reconstruction', sum up arguments against the deforestation of war-ravaged environments in Cinq - "  
  
"Did you enjoy your week at home, Relena?" Mrs. Darlian broke in, smiling complacently as though she hadn't heard a word Relena had uttered in the last few minutes.  
  
"Yes, I had a wonderful time. Thank you." She shook her head. "I don't know if you'll be happy coming with me all over the place - it's such a tight schedule, I don't know how..."  
  
"Relena, don't worry about me. I supported your father in all his pursuits from home and, in hindsight, that wasn't what he needed. I want to come, now, to help you." Mrs. Darlian smiled and Relena noticed again the fine lines crinkling at the edges of her mother's eyes. "I don't like to leave you so little leeway, Relena, but you're not going to have much time protesting my near presence. So don't." She brushed out imagined wrinkles in her suit. "Now then, when do we land?"  
  
"Less than half an hour." Relena smoothed her mother's collar, slightly upturned. "Thanks. I really appreciate this."  
  
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Again, please review. ^ ^ 


	13. Ch13 It's been a while since never

Disclaimer: Usual applies  
  
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Their hotel was as spare inside as it was done-up outside. As many core cities on the colonies had been fashioned in the architectural styles of Europe in the eighteenth to nineteenth century, one could imagine themselves on Earth but for the darker shell of sky above. If only for slight adjustments - concrete and marble were so expensive the exportation of them to Space had been prohibited unless in slight amounts, and wood had been replaced by an indoor-version of the synthetic wood making up park benches - the buildings were complete in their look and feel of an old, untouched, richly-fattened city. Mrs. Darlian had commented on one on their way to their hotel - a bank she thought modeled after a hotel she once saw in Baden-Baden.  
  
The outwardly appearances of these buildings were startling when compared to their white-walled, minimalist, concrete and metal-worked insides. The style had been quickly taken up by several colonies; it only seemed natural that a strong modern art movement had taken root in some of these cities.  
  
Relena wondered at their little suite. The furniture itself was an adventure, clean lines and little else. Their couch - the only couch in the room, but a behemoth of a couch that stretched seven feet long - had no arm rests, a dun color. Bookshelves painted black, set at various heights on the each of the walls, held some pottery done by local artists.  
  
Relena ventured into what would be their bedrooms. Raised futons on black frames, squat nightstands with rounded sides like teapots on legs. A gauzy rug crossed the space between the futons.  
  
"I don't think we have a closet." Relena called over her shoulder, shifting the weight of her suitcase to ease the ache in her shoulder.  
  
"Check the walls, they might be built in."  
  
"Oh." Relena set her luggage down and lay both palms on the wall. Pressed. Pressed again. Moving on. Pressed. POP. A deepset booth built into the wall, complete with hangers and drawers, appeared. "Found it."   
  
"Oh good - the telecom set up was in one of those out here, too..." POP.  
  
"There's two - plenty of space, really..."  
  
"Interesting, isn't it?" Mrs. Darlian joined her daughter in their bedroom and reeled around at the size of their window. "'Heavens!" Relena began unpacking.  
  
"The bathroom has a skylight, have you seen it?"  
  
"Oh my." Despite the doubt in her tone Mrs. Darlian looked flushed, relaxed. "It's such a little place..."  
  
"They pack us into whatever's available, really."  
  
"I remember...."  
  
Relena straightened up, surveyed the folded sweater sets, suits on hangers, the three pairs of shoes she had brought from Earth. "I'm going to take a - they don't have baths here....." Water conservation laws and related restraints kept water usage at an inconspicuous, relatively untroubling level. Hygiene sprays were still used widely in all but the best of hotels - one had to pay a tax on day-to-day water in a private home.  
  
Mrs. Darlian paused at the window. "How much shower time do we have?"  
  
"Fifteen minutes." Relena plucked a towel from a pile on the futon mattress. "I'm off."  
  
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A light-metal case in box form, set upright and into a corner of the room, with enough room for her to turn full circle with both elbows held out at her sides. A wide faucet head operated by square knobs, a gadge measuring the temperature, a lever controlling how much water was let off and in what form - mist, droplets, etc. It took five minutes alone for Relena to set the gadgets at a level she was comfortable with.  
  
Hopping in, she hurriedly soaped up, lathered on the shampoo, scrubbed. She wondered if one of the features of this futuristic shower stall included roll-over shower minutes - wouldn't that be nice?  
  
Damn it, they had a timer! Why would one need a reminder of - oh no, eight minutes left...  
  
The last bath she had was last night. Relena's thoughts fled from the textured surface of the stall floor to the three-quarters full tub in her private bathroom on Earth - the circulation of water that kept the temperature of the water even for an hour. She had her hair twisted as high up on her head as she could make it go, engaged with several unsharpened pencils. As nothing faced the window of that bathroom other than several lonely acres of grass, she felt the delightful audacity to leave the window drapes open. The hiss she'd made at making contact with the water, sinking her body, submerged to just below her collar bone. Ginger and strawberry-tainted water. Violin music floated from downstairs; her mother, listening to the radio.  
  
Out of the shower, rub rub rub with the towel. The bathroom was bare but for the absolute essentials - sink, toilet, spacepod-shower stall. She found a compartment for toiletries above the sink, in another compartment in the wall.  
  
Wrapping the towel securely about her body Relena left to tell her mother the bathroom was free. Mrs. Darlian lay facing the wall on the futon, a blanket thrown over her legs. A clock ticked off the minutes of a half hour.  
  
"Shuttle flights still tire her out, then." Relena murmured to herself.  
  
She turned away from her mother and, in the shade of the closed blinds her mother had drawn before she went to sleep, dressed quickly. She hadn't been in this area of the colony before and it intrigued her.  
  
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They had needed help with the equipment and offered money to passerbyers to lug it in. Heero needed the money, motels and travel having worn down on what funds he had at his disposal, and volunteered. In the hour it took to finish he found it hard to tear himself bodily away - people grabbed, groped, reached for whoever had anything to do with the bands playing, the excitement that comes of being in a crowd upward of three hundred bodies gives a person spreading, heightening - brawls broke out with the leaders ending in a heap, laughing and shaking hands; a girl reached out and brazenly grabbed a stranger's crotch, but he didn't yelp, simply looked down at her hand in a dazed way - a trio of girls crowded another of their group with a video camera, cackling - someone had grappled their way onto another's shoulders and was advertising beer, though it was prohibited.  
  
In the end, Heero did not leave, the promise of more money at the end of the show and something to do for the next five hours more appealing than sitting in his motel room with a helmet. Leaving would have been difficult anyway, at least two hundred people blocking him on the one side of the room where there was an exit. He to the left wing backstage, looking out at the teeming, happy mass with a mix of reserve and curiosity. One of the performers approached him, a scrawny thing of a nineteen year old. He motioned to the crowd with his chin.  
  
"Nice. This is nice." He waited but Heero didn't pick up the lead. He licked his lips and Heero thought he might be nervous, really nervous. Or just fidgety. "Uh, I'm part of the introduction. You know, like, the band that comes before all the ones people want to see?" He shuffled about so as to lean against the wall next to Heero. "Yeah, this is, like, the second-biggest show we've had. We performed in Calomen, you know, on Colony 14R-GH? It's...it's a half hour from here..."  
  
"What's your name?"  
  
"Jerred, you?"  
  
"No, your band."  
  
"Oh, Jag Lees." Jerred wasn't sure what to do about Heero's lack of eye contact, something he didn't practice in a conversation himself but that he was used to receiving.  
  
"So, uh, what are you - what - " Heero took the moment to turn his head and stare.  
  
"I helped bring in the sound equipment."  
  
"Ah." A girl approached Jerred, someone in red leather, a loose sweatshirt with rips in the sleeves. "We're on in ten minutes, where've you been?" Jerred shrugged, tilting his head in Heero's direction. The girl glanced at him, then up and down, quick and casual, a spark of interest replaced quickly by indifference. "Yeah, well, you're ready then?"  
  
"Yeah, yeah, don't worry. Andy, this is - uh...?" Heero's gaze slid away from the pair but he gave them his name. "Yeah, Heero, this is Andrea - percussion." She nodded at him.  
  
"We've got to go set up, okay?" Drawing an arm through Jerred's she glanced back at Heero. "Nice meeting you. Enjoy the show."  
  
Heero nodded. He watched them leave and was oddly taken with Andrea's walk - she pushed forward aggressively but advanced with the heels of her feet, which, in high heels such as the pair she wore that evening, gave the effect of sharply swinging hips, an attractive, fierce walk.  
  
He'd remember little of the show in the future and enjoyed it minimally. Andrea's walk was more memorable than her solo, and Jerred was still being broken in. The bands after them were more experienced. The crowd thought much of it and brawled and screamed their appreciation. Near the end, once a great many had left because they had heard what they'd come for, when the ground was clear enough to move around in, Heero took a walk, the booming of the base at his back. He found a stool around what had been a makeshift bar, perhaps where those from earlier had given people beer.  
  
Someone approached him; a girl, roughly twenty years old, hair a startling white blond, dark roots just barely beginning to show - the hair hung down to her waist, plastered to her neck and forehead, the skin at her cheekbones tinged red with activity.  
  
"Hey." She didn't wait for an invitation but perched herself on the arm of a comfy chair with most of the stuffing missing from the seat. "Haven't seen you before at a 'Showdown Central' concert."  
  
This was an invitation of sorts, Heero understood. She waited for a moment.  
  
"Yeah, well, it was okay. My little sister dragged me along - did you see the people giving out beer here?" She paused. "Or were they selling it...I can't remember."  
  
"They were giving it away."  
  
"Oh. My little sister - she's over there, no, by the stairs, see? - screaming red hair, can't miss it - she knows one of the performers. I'm here on vacation." Again, an invitation, she waited, Heero didn't take up on the cue, she skipped his lack of response and plowed ahead. "The university's trash right now, all the papers have something to do with the war being over. Everyone's got their own opinion on it but the teachers mess with it anyway." Heero absorbed this, mulled it over.  
  
"Where do you study?"  
  
"Allengoreharen University. Heard of it? No? Well, it's small. Do you go to - wait, how old are you?...never mind. Anyway, they say take risks, but what risks do they mean, they prod us like things in a cage and when they get a real reaction out of us they're not happy with the results, you know what I mean?" Heero made a vague nod. "I mean, it's enough to make me get some sort of student's union together - 'Give us different requirements for term papers, or else!', something like that, with pins and confetti at initations." She grinned - she had a very symmetrical grin. "I study political philosophy, though, so that's almost part of the curriculum - one teacher's overthrown in a mutiny every year, it seems natural."  
  
She laughed; she had a very throaty laugh, like someone who smoke alot - but nothing of her smelled of cigarrettes.  
  
"Besides...it was a funny war....I mean, there were clear sides, clear good guys and bad guys, but then things blurred every so often, you know? Oh, moving on, that's stupid." She eyed him, perhaps for a hint as to where the conversation would swing to. "What are you doing here, anyway?"  
  
"I helped move the equipment in."  
  
"Ah. Well, I think they're taking it to the vans out back now, do you have to go?" He stood up, ran a hand over the side of his face.  
  
"Yeah, I do."  
  
"I'll see you out there, then." She left and he went for the stage.  
  
They paid him a comfortable amount and he indeed met the girl in the parking lot. She grinned again, the action making her face perfect in its proportions.  
  
"By the way, I'm Alice."A girl joined them, Heero recognized her as the sister. Hair the shade of Mardi Gras. She gave a quick, acknowledging smile.  
  
"Alice, I'm going home with Daniel. Here're the keys to the car."  
  
"Thanks, see you later." Alice cuffed her at the jaw bone, the touch obviously gentle. Once her sister left Alice looked back at Heero; light from the streetlights caused her eyes to glint in the dark, throwing rounded shadows over the planes of her face. "Feel like going somewhere?" He shrugged. "You never told me your name." She pointed out.  
  
"Heero."  
  
"Ah." She motioned for him to follow her; they soon stood beside a car cramped with age. "We have lots of choices - there's a bar that has purple lights, pretty good drinks. Ever heard of it? 'Adam's'? No? Good, it'll be an adventure." She unlocked the door to the driver's seat, slid in, and reached over to unlock the passenger's side. With only the slightest hesitation Heero walked around the car and took his seat beside Alice. There was only enough space in the car for two people and some groceries, at best.  
  
He was aware of the time - just after midnight - and felt a shiver take hold of him; he was recklessly leaving the Zero alone and unguarded in his motel room. It felt good.  
  
"So, Heero, what do you do?"  
  
"Do?"  
  
"Yeah, for fun, as a job, you know." He shrugged, noncommittal.  
  
"I'm taking a break."  
  
"Sounds good. Sounds great, actually." Her stare lay riveted on the road ahead. "I wish I could, but I'm in the thick end of my third year. What else?" He considered this but remained silent. "Alright..." She sounded annoyed, gave a small curse at passing a red light. "...I hope they didn't have one of those cameras there, this wouldn't qualify as an intersection, right...." Heero couldn't remember having seen a camera on the side of the road, and they hadn't gone fast enough to attract the attention of one immediately anyway.  
  
"What're you doing around here, Heero?"  
  
"Checking it out."  
  
"Why?"  
  
"I needed to get out." She laughed.  
  
"Okay, I get that." Hair wrapped around her shoulders in a heavy, moist mass - streetlights cast an odd sheen to the sweat on her face and patch of collar bone at her shirt.  
  
"Aren't you warm?"  
  
"'Uh? Oh, yeah. But, I really like long hair - and I finally got it to act normal. It's such a pain right after I bleach it, 'takes weeks to look good. Anyway, I felt like showing it off." She shook her head sharply in an effort to lift some of its weight from her neck, but it simply fell back in place. "Uggh, I didn't know it was going to be so humid, what are they doing with the air up there?..." They pulled into a parking lot tight with cars. Alice wriggled their way into an acceptable spot. There was no space to get out through the car doors so they left by way of the trunk.  
  
At approaching the doors, Thena swatted at Heero's shoulder.  
  
"Just look like you're nineteen, alright?" The security guards they passed made no motion to stop them, looking them over with a trained air of suspicion. Heero met the stare of one and instinctively narrowed his eyes at recognizing a possible threat. The guard gave no reaction, but Heero detected a facial twitch in passing.  
  
The atmosphere was buzzing but low-key, the bartender chatting up a trio of women at one corner of the bar. It took the smack of Alice's palm against the countertop to get his attention. He excused himself, wandered over and took their orders.  
  
"I'm not a fan of alcohol, but this is part of the let loose experience, right?" Alice shot Heero a grin - perfect, everything measured up - and, propping her elbow on the counter, set her chin in her hand and stared at him. "Man, I saw you try to stare those guards down, out there - why would you do that? I've seen security kick people out for laughing in their direction." When she received no response she let it drop. "God, what time is it? Wow, so late already! Oh well. My parents - I stay with them when I'm here - not really part of the of the let loose deal, but..you know - never expect me home before four. I mean, I don't party, right? But there's so much to do here - Mikhail Arish exhibitions, graffiti tours, and, oh, these garden things, like a dinner party in a garden, but only with drinks." Pause. "Hey, have you ever been to a Quarter-night Art Exhibition?" Heero shook his head and she gave a real gasp. "That's crazy! You're practically a native of this area living here a week, even people from Earth come to these, complaining about jet lag - do you like art, Heero?"  
  
"Generally." He said after a long silence. She nodded eagerly, though some part of her kept a physically reserved manner in that she hardly moved from the chin in hand, elbow on the counter-position.  
  
"Do you like modern translational, specifically? I mean, the movement of this century, so accurately that'd be the revolutionary modern translational art movement, or Remta for us remtaists." That flash of a grin appeared, died down. "Like, Mikhail Arish, Lucy Mac, Aruth and Dame Marge Meenk?"  
  
"No."  
  
"You're kidding!" She gulped down the last third of her drink and coughed raspingly. "Well, it's about time. When do you want to be home, Heero?" He shrugged. "I mean, I just don't want to get you in trouble, you know, staying up late. Well, there's an exhibition in a half hour, if we go now we'll get there in time for the last tour, free admission. How about it?" She grinned and Heero saw the pink of her tongue at the back of her mouth. She held her glass to her forehead, the ice cubes making little noises as they shifted around at the bottom of her glass (clinkclink). She cocked her head back at him, eyeing Heero challengingly. "C'mon, I know you'll like it."  
  
No, she really didn't, but it intrigued Heero for her to say that. He gave a shrug and half-nod.  
  
"Great! Just let me clean up, so - freeze." She rushed off, the coloured lights of the club falling on her hair, turning it dark blue, neon green....  
  
Heero looked around, straightening. He rubbed his palms on the tops of his thighs, stared at his drink, glanced around. There weren't all that many people around. None even looked drunk, as he thought most late-night club guests would be. He brushed the fingers of one hand against the hot, sweaty skin of his forehead. He wiped at the back of his neck, the moistened hair at the base of his skull clinging to his knuckles before he brushed them out of the way. Next, he wiped his hands, back and front, on his pants again. He shook out his shoulders to loosen the sleeves from his armpits. To keep himself occupied he swallowed the rest of his drink, something that smelled of alcohol more than it actually consisted of alcohol. The bartender came by and Heero, unsure of what to do without the glass even as the man across from him tossed them into the sink, paid him. He dragged the dry skin of the inside of his wrists across his face and felt he was getting the littlest bit tired.  
  
When she came back her hair was pulled back in a braid. Sweat made the hair around her face glisten a little.  
  
"Alright, ready? Good, let's go." Alice waved at the security guards in passing, playing the role of the coquettish femme fatale until they got to the car and she found she was lacking her keys. She rummaged about in all the pockets of her clothing, the little bag she had with her. "Where did they go? Where did they go? Where did they go?" She kept muttering.  
  
Heero held them out to her, having found them to have dropped behind one of the tires.  
  
Grinning, she snatched them and toppled into the car, pulling herself over the tiny back seat and into the front. Heero followed, shutting the trunk behind him. They squeezed out of the parking lot.  
  
"I wasn't planning on going tonight, but - oh, no no, I'd love to, don't worry, this won't inconvenience me a bit - ugh, I can't remember who it is, who's showing tonight, who's showing tonight, damn it, I knew this just five hours ago! Let's see, someone oriental, I think - Kangpi, that's the name, what is that, I think she's from Taiwan, originally. Oh yeah, Kangpi, Lan, moved to Space, like, eighteen years ago." Alice laughed abruptly. "I saw a picture of her, in the newspaper, just last week! She was quoted in an article about - I don't know, politics, economic principles, something like that. She's a whiz, really. And she looks older than she actually is, I think she's only forty." They made a sharp turn into a residential street. "I mean, like, she doesn't take care of her skin, and out here, SPF 80 is a must. Left or right....oh, and she does that warbling singing they do in Taiwan, you ever heard it? She's not supposed to be really good, but she can carry a note for a while...damn, I need to make a u-turn, hold on..."  
  
The Quarter-night art exhibitions, to which Kangpi's exhibition that night belonged to, apparently, was held at a two-story building on the outskirts of the downtown area. Two levels that an artist could play with, used for all mediums - as Alice recalled, one exhibition had been entirely of mobiles made of origami and thin steel wires and multicolored christmas lights, the kind strung about trees during the holidays. A jolly crowd had gathered in the first level, about to proceed to the second, when they arrived. They were ushered in to the sight of quality calligraphy on all manner of material - blocks of concrete fashioned into geometric blocks, usually balanced on a point; splatter-painted canvases each in the shape of a hand, strung together to make a patchwork quilt of sorts; clay modeled to look like rumpled clothing lying in hampers that were damaged. What looked like a series of magazines lying on the floor in various degrees of usage was actually one large painting fitted into the floor, under glass.  
  
Alice wound her arm through the crook of Heero's elbow, using that link to lead him around the building she was so familiar with. She loved it, she could not move from the spot when they stood above the painting of the magazines, she insisted on seeing the six-by-nine-foot canvas from each corner until satsifed she knew its meaning. When they came to a piece displaying ornamental trees powdered with soot and chalk dust, chunks of concrete and twisted steel around their bases, she oggled it with a nervous, wistful laugh - only Heero seemd to be able to depict the scene it held in his mind with accuracy, as the artist had intended. The impression it gave him was that he was standing in a parking lot, next to a large park, pressing the detonation button in one fist again and watching a series of buildings collapse in an explosive heap. The leap back into that life rocked him - it made him want to retch. The display was little more than five feet wide and barey reached past his head, but it held him. He couldn't breath for a moment, he felt his ears clog up.  
  
The unexcusable, sudden intrusion of his past on his present put Heero in a cold sweat. If Alice had at all wanted to move she would not have been able to move him with her - he was frozen, regarding each detail of Kangpi's piece until he had it memorized, horror widening at his eyes. Later, when they left the exhibition, Heero bought a pack of postcards with Kangpi's pieces on the cover of each.  
  
Some of the exhibitions were lighthearted, some not. One showed a box in the middle of a little, empty room - the box was bursting with red and pink paper cut-out hearts, fluttering out into the room, some supported by thin plastic wire, others jumping out of the books on tiny, near-transparent stalks.  
  
They did not know anyone there. Kangpi herself had left two hours ago, after the second showing that night (there were usually four in one night, one held in the early evening to accomodate the people that stayed out no later than eleven). Alice held onto Heero's arm the whole time - when he was not staring at a display or a painting so realistic it hurt to watch without touching, he was confronted with Alice's perfect, excited smile, so close that he could see the spit shining on her teeth after she licked them in thought. It was a turbulent ride, more wild than Alice's driving, more brusque than the concert had been. Is this what people do these days? Is this what I'm supposed to do? Supposed to do, what is that, these thoughts....Heero turned them over like a witch her tarot cards, quickly without dwelling on them until they lay out in front of him, a full array of confusion, choas, enjoyment. Years later he would not have made up his mind on whether he liked Kangpi or not - all he would allow himself is that her work moved him greatly in a shocking, unintended way.  
  
Alice drove him home. It was the first time he had let anyone know the near-vicinity of where he lived. She dropped him off at a drugstore, depositing him on the curb like someone taking a child from a horse's back and setting it on the ground - "Alright, you're turn's over, there's your mommy." The drugstore was open twentyfour-seven and he remembered, he needed some things there, medicinal supplies having gotten low the past few days, but he still felt the tornado of unwanted, unexpected things making his mind tremble with the force of its take-over.  
  
"Did you like that, Heero?" He glanced at her, his hand on the door, just about to push it open and let himself out. He nodded, if only to satisfy her. She seemed to preen herself, happy. She seemed very satisfied. A thoughtful pause crossed out conversation and he felt he should wait until she said goodnight - that would be the definitive end to this night.  
  
She stared at him, comfortable with the otherwise awkward quiet, and slowly reached back to undo her hair. He could read the vanity and care she stored in that length of hair, a rope of white-blond, still rough and coarse from a dye-job, the ends recently cut. She hadn't been as happy with it in a braid, contained all evening. Alice had wanted people to see it, to stretch their necks to catch a glimpse of her hips when her hair finally moved aside for those few seconds it took to turn, or hop, or bound up stairs. She left it semi-tangled down her back.  
  
"I hope I'm not going to get a ticket for parking on the curb." She chuckled, stretching an arm along the back of her seat.  
  
"The police only come by at three, then they're away until five thirty."  
  
"Ah. How do you know that?"  
  
"I watched them."  
  
"From where?" He shrugged.  
  
She grinned again, but this time her grin was awfully close. He looked down, saw the white skin of her throat stretching as she brought her face to his in a quick movement. She managed to lean across both their seats, her mouth whispering into his. He could feel the texture of her lips, and he tasted the last of her gloss (odd). Her mouth was a little rough, but she wetted the lips and he felt the wet-rough of her tongue when she flicked it. She took his mouth quickly, losing no time in introducing a deeper version of the first encounter. Pulling back, she dragged her lips across his, barely touching, kissing the corner of his mouth. One hand on the wheel, one hand on the back of his seat, Alice hung over Heero like a blonde panther. He felt no sign of a grin when she kissed him again, dipping her tongue into his mouth, tilting his head back without a guide. Heero felt one hand curl around the side of his neck and felt his guard go up for a moment, but the loose hold of her fingers gave him no reason to object to the treatment he received.  
  
She crouched closer until he could feel her knees jab lightly into his thigh. He brought one hand up to her face, and the skin was unusually cool. The kneading, altering pressure of her mouth and rustling movement of their clothes called for all his attention. He decisively suspended his thoughts of how odd this was.  
  
She kissed in an all-absorbing way, never teasing, just giving. Her weight on his lap, shifting, darkening the light from the streetlights, gave substance to the experience, ensuring him that this was not an illusion. She kissed him along his jaw line, and his adam's apple. He found she had a full upper lip, a slender bottom lip. Close up, her face was like the moon seen from earth, but with defined cheekbones and a smooth, small nose. She chewed his bottom lip, delved deeper into his mouth (what did that taste like?). She tasted nothing like the alcohol or appetizers she'd had at the art show, she tasted warm, a little like fruit - raspberry, perhaps.  
  
As he had said, no police bothered them. Alice was sure of herself - nothing went farther than that - and Heero let himself out onto that curb while she waved good-bye. But in the meantime between the initial good-byes and his feet on the sidewalk of that curb stood a moment rendered by the calligraphy pen of Kangpi herself - a terrible, private, vulnerable moment.  
  
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Please, please, please review. More than that - thank you for waiting, and being so patient. It's been difficult, here. - Becca-W 


	14. Ch14 New faces might be the cure

Disclaimer: Usual applies.  
  
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Relena left a note at the hotel for her mother and notified her team she was going. (The hotel offered services that sent out telegrams to its guests: they arrived at the recipient's door via a maid). Though there was no use in having it Relena wore a lightweight coat, if only to promote a feeling of inconspicuousness in public.  
  
Once she stepped outside Relena felt unusually self-conscious - smoothing the collar of her coat with one hand, she smiled at the valet and walked across the corad.  
  
A vendor at the corner of the street sold pastries and juice: she bragged about the origins of the type Relena bought.  
  
"Mango-papaya, after all, is only grown on three local moon farms so far - but the owner keeps reasonable prices, and you can believe my customers love the results! Mr. Gram's a bit of a genius, really - hybrids of tropical fruits are his specialty: other than mango-papaya, he also has an apple-pear hybrid and - oh, he's working on a pomegranate-coconut plant! Imagine that!"  
  
"Imagine that." Relena echoed, smiling.  
  
The streets were wide with slots set in the curb that led tot he sewers. Bulbous containers standing to her hips acted as automatic trash bins, organized by color - green for colored glass, red for paper, etc. Relena passed a school - dark stone and large, white-rimmed windows reflecting the sun overhead - and let her fingers drum against the ars of the fence surrounding it. The sounds it made were thick and short, dnng-dnng-dnng. Farther down she came across a busier section of the city, all the bulidings held offices and boutiques, quiet stores and riotous services. Relena threw the large plastic cup which had held her juice into a blue trash can that promptly whirred as it worked the plastic. (Mango-papaya, hmm...).  
  
A public transport shuttle passed her by and saw it stop up ahead. A crookedly-shaped old lady hobbled up the ramp that unfolded for her. Relena headed for the travel information posted on the bench of the shuttle stop and studied the schedule.  
  
"Jules Drape Memorial Gardne (AC 192): open 7 AM to 7:30 PM". The next shuttle in the direction of the Drape Memorial was in fifteen minutes. Relena considered this...glanced over her shoulder...then at her watch...tapped her wrist with one finger, an impatient expression spreading over face at her own indecisiveness...she looked through her pockets...felt change in the bottom of her coat pocket....tapped her foot, glanced at her watch again...curled her fingers around the money warming in her hand...  
  
Dinner was at seven. She'd be back long before. And who knew when she would be able to get out like this again. So, Relena stepped up on the next shuttle bus.  
  
This early in the year the Drape Memorial already had flowers in full bloom. A comination of the intensity of sunlight in space, the type of soil and bioengineering made these flowers capable of blooming as often as three times a year. Relena lost hersel in the shrubbery, a forest of colors. Though the garden lacked all the usual animal life, well-cared for butterflies lifted off flowers at face level with Relena, their heads bobbing - it seemed almost a cheerful greeting, their petals waving stiffly when the insects rose from them.  
  
She thought she had read about a bird conservatory in the city, too - it's specialty, she recalled, lay in raising hummingbirds.  
  
"It's so quiet." Relena murmured. Spying a bench she settled onto it, surrounded on three sides by flowers her height when standing.  
  
It felt as though her thoughts were unraveling, right there - being still caused it. She had alot to look forward to - and curious questions abounded that needed answering, some direction. Unmercifully her mind turned towards politics. The next elections were a year away - this time around she would have to go about it the old-fashioned way, campaigning, spending money, traveling. The rushed affair leading to her position after the war would become part of the past, the conditions surrounding her position in office being unique. She remembered those unusual days, a little after the war had ended - the standard practices had been completely foregone when she took up the job, they needed someone that badly. She was still filled with the same purpose and intent and sense of will as then, to be sure, but things had changed already. She needed to prepare herself. This time, there was no desperation that would boot her into power - she would have to go against real opponents, people with twenty year's worth of interspacial-relations experience.  
  
She lived a highly competitive life now. There were many who would prefer her to leave the ring for reasons other than that her father was the politician he was, his assassination, and her general popularity - she was younger than any had been when they entered politics; she was a woman, a girl, really; she could influence the people of Earth as well the colonies, which no one else could and which kept her, if nothing else did, firmly rooted in her position. She was a league unto herself. Her youth simply mirrored her vitality; the idealism and self-righteousness that lent a crisp edge to her character impressed on others a vision of seriousness, maturity and foresight.  
  
After the intense confusion the war had caused - soldiers dying, citizens dying, life in space nearly caving in, economical ruin, and political chaos starting and ending with Treize Kushrenada, and initially, the first Heero Yuy - Relena Darlian was a needed breath of fresh air. But where was her place in all this? Was a seventeen-year-old girl to lead civilization to peace on her own? Who did she have with her to act as the backbone of a body to which she was the heart? When would the fresh-faced politician wilt, as all politicians did, earlier than most. Would the opposition she faced be too great a climb? Would her apparent determination and obstinate nature overtake her? (That question, not her own, was a stanger bumping shoulders with the familiar thoughts in her head. It was a curiosity). After all, with youth came naivete - that idealist nature of her's acted as sure prove of that, right? (The stranger brought a friend to rub shoulders with, then). Were people even ready? God knew everyone felt they were, but a knowing mind is always squinting to see better.  
  
Then there was the age factor. In many ways, she was too young to be nominated for her party. Legal restrictions demanded a person be twenty-three to run for positions in government, and she was not even seventeen yet. Unofficially, a full college education was expected from nominees (and, really, almost everyone involved in campaigning). She was already reporting to other diplomats as a way for others to keep tabs on her - she would meet with them monthly to discuss her aims, intentions, even her speeches, etc. Some of these people held a lesser rank than her, which obsured their motives in dealing with the Representative of Earth, Relena Darlian. She sometimes had the impression they reacted jealously to her work,which she found very unfortunate. Her objectives were constantly misconstrued, a result of her catapaulting journey to fame. Though only a true politician in the last few months, Relena had gained greatly experience. She understood that, no matter the state of Cinq's economy, over which she exercised the control a nation's figurehead may hold, and no matter the conditions between the colonies and Earth, the source of the greastest of her worries, she needed to complete her education. to work in the full sphere her position demanded of her. To grow into the changing politics of her day Relena found it an unsaid requirement that she finish her education.  
  
But the time that required...Relena sank her chin into the dip of her curved hand. She would graduate from undergraduate school in AC 200, and if she decided to go for a master's degree, she wouldn't see the end of school until AC 204. If she started now - as she knew she could - she would be twenty-five when she finally graduated. She was not sure she could stay out that long - the reams of some obligation only partly known to her now filled her gut. She could not just drop everything for something as comparatively petty as that (perhaps an exaggeration on her part). This was rather self-righteous to think, but people needed her, she had her father's shoes to fill, a gap in history was her's to complete. The idealist in her ran screaming through her head at the thought of quitting politics, even if it were only a temporary lapse in the politics Relena gave so much to, expected so much of!  
  
Her head had begun to hurt, a dull, slow ache lurking in the eyesockets. The garden's heady smell came close to being nauseating but Relena forced the feeling out of her system. She wanted to stay, it was so pretty. Besides, she had not really eaten anything in the past four hours, there was nothing retching would help.  
  
The continuous unraveling of her thoughts continued.  
  
That she was a woman in a game still dominated by men played against her as well. As much as she disliked it, the truth was that most men on her playing field saw her as more of a threat than she really was (or, perhaps not - perhaps they're evaluation of her as an immediate threat was accurate. Only time would tell). As the figurehead of Romaefeller earlier, she had taken on more than the other heads of Romaefeller had wanted her to. She became what she represented, which no one had planned, least of all expected. It irritated them - at first, they reacted treating her as one would a rash would, then as a deteriorating disease. That she had kept at it this long and this successfully irked a great many that said little to that effect - always, always she had to keep an eye out for one of those. Looking over her shoulder was beginning to become a reflex.  
  
Another idea pushed into the crowded party pulsing in Relena's brain. It brought her to the subject of everyone only indirectly involved with the war - the primary victims, the people outside of the army and the government, the middle and lower classes, blue collar workers. She was something unique to them for other reasons than she was useful to the ESUN, or her own team. The people she worked with had been eye-witnesses to some part of the war - it had been rather hard to escape, as she found out herself - and therefore she held a special connection with them.  
  
The people to whom she was appealing to saw her in a different light - the reason she felt she sometimes played a role rather than be herself in front of an audience was that they saw a different person there. In their eyes, she was the martyr that hadn't died, the prophet that spoke ahead of schedule. Her age made a winsome impression on those crowds who considered her youth both unusual and adorable. They could take her seriously without being reminded of rank blood, that uncle missing in action, the after-effects of government rationing. That she had to work under so many restrictions - not half of them officially known, but it was accurately guessed that she worked under special conditions - somehow charmed the masses, ensured them of her mortality. They even saw the act of her immediate education put on hold as a direct sacrifice and this boosted morale!  
  
It was weird that everything that could hold her back in the future now counted for her. What was personally not so good for her appealed to a crowd - appealed to the self-absorbed, selfish, grubbing parts of people that could sometimes put a person out of politics forever under the influence of circumstantial evidence alone!  
  
She was getting ahead of herself and her head was near bursting. This thought turned out a little louder than the rest and reigned over the hum in her skull.  
  
The war that these people had seen, the people that voted for her!, was a different one from the one Relena had been involved in. Granted, she had seen an unsual, downright eccentric side of war - an estranged brother, Gundam pilots that some people now said had not even existed but were pure gossip created by the gaps in records detailing the past year - she had argued with Treize Kushrenada on multiple occations, survived an encounter with Heero's former trainer - a man who, even then, barely after turning fifteen, Relena felt she'd rather not be alone with.....all this, this huge mountain of unsorted data, made her wonder at people's sincerity and eagerness when they declared themselves for her cause. How could they know? They hadn't been through what she had. That war had created a moat around her, disconnecting her from what was popular thought. An island in the middle of hilly land. Of course, she would not wish her experiences on them, just as she'd rather not know the specifics of their past experiences either. But she worried that someday, someone would ask her, and at her response wonder from what angle she came from as this certainly was not what they were expecting. Oh, expectations - would she ever live up to the half of them that were important enough? There were so many things she could worry about without reusing the worry from the day before - new day, new worry. (She didn't really like this idea, though, and it disappeared as quickly as it had come about).  
  
All the same, this must have been something like what her father experienced. Relena cocked her head to the side, completely unaware of her surroundings now, the image of her father fresh in her mind. He had been relatively young when he started his political career at twenty-two, first as part of a major campaign - he helped write the speeches. To hear her father speak the result of writing speeches was quite different than from what he had imagined for himself. By then, he had parted from the background machinery making up a campaign and joined the front ranks, beside the man he used to write one-third of his words for - Heero Yuy. Heero Yuy introduced him to the heavy work that became her father's life, shuttling across space everywhere, gaining all kinds of connections. Relena's father, by then, realized he had picked the path he would take for the rest of his life. It was a sobering notion.  
  
At Heero Yuy's assassination in AC 180 her father held his own career and had formed an alliance with important business men, as a politician's biggest adversary remained the merchant. One of these was Mr. Winner, head of the Winner family. On a side note, he was one of the first people to become introduced to the youngest of Mr. Winner's children, and the only child not born of a test-tube - Quatre Raberba Winner.  
  
He met Relena's mother not two years later - in AC 184 they were married. And according to the timeline forming her past, Cinq fell in AC 185, bringing her to stay permanently with the newly-weds as their five-year-old child. A coppery taste bloomed in her mouth as Relena chewed on the inside of her bottom lip, this summary of her life particularly fascinating to her because it seemed so very planned-out, as though someone had traced her life's general path through all the occurences of her late father's.  
  
It certainly didn't feel like this path was marked all that much by her true bloodline, the Peacecraft family. She possessed that name like one who hoards their jewels in a safe - by keeping it out of sight it was still her's to contemplate, if not to mimick. She was a Peacecraft but also a second-generation politician of the Darlian line. It was really what she wanted.  
  
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Heero stomped up the last of the steps, turning sharply into an empty, gray corridor with his hands in his pockets and his eyes on the floor. An empty canvas bag hung over one wrist poking out of his pant pocket; each step echoed in the cement corridor. He advanced to the next set of staircases at the end of the hall - halfway up those he would be at his door. The one-bedroom flat he now rented by the week sat at the top of an apartment complex, the small bathroom missing some tiling and the kitchen microwave with its own quirky personality; a large window opened his bedroom up to the neighborhod he had washed up in, its dingy, unloving atmosphere.  
  
A staggering sound came from behind; he turned, frozen in midstride. An old man pushed his way past the door Heero had just come from, one hand on the doorframe to steady the sway in his step. When he looked up Heero found himself locking gazes with the cloudy-green eyes of a papery-skinned retiree, the bagginess of his shirt emphasizing his thin-shouldered frame and the prominence of his adam's apple, his thick-soled sandals displaying knobby feet and yellowing, tiny toe nails. The old man cocked his head at Heero, a distrustful expression thickening the pea-soup green of his eyes.  
  
"Who the hell are you?" He blustered. He had a scratchy, goat-like quality to his voice, as though he yodeled under his breath while he spoke. Apparently, he expected an answer to his query, his eyes flitting over Heero throughout.  
  
"I'm a new renter." Heero motioned with his head to the door halfway up the next staircase. "Over there."  
  
"Alright." The old man chewed the inside of his cheek, pushing his bottom lip forward. "In that case, help me with this crap here." Heero's eyes focused on a few lumpy shapes in the doorway behind the old man. The old man seemed maddened by his lack of movement. "Either say you've got a lay coming on or get moving! Hell, don't be troublesome." Heero turned around and they eyed each other, each weighing their growing dislike and indifference toward the other, asking whether the feeling was really worth the effort.  
  
"Alright, you demanding old bag." Heero reiterated. "I'll help you. What do you have over there?"  
  
"None of your fucking business - just some things I need to get to the roof." The old man turned back and grabbed one of the lumps - he pulled it along the ground, a coarse, lumpy sack smelling of rotting potatos. Heero went back and grabbed the remaining two, each reaching from his hip to the ground and very compact. With the old man leading the way they passed Heero's door; at the top of the staircase the old man took out some keys and undid the locks holding together some chains barring the door. With a sniff in Heero's direction the old man quickly pocketed the keys in the depths of his vest. Heero could feel his eyes glaring at him indifferently out the back of his head.  
  
Air rushed through Heero's hair and the smell of the sacks in his hands left him, blowing behind him down the hall. The old man pushed forward again, heading for a small makeshift shack to the right. The roof had a view little different from the one he got in the morning; a spread of buildings in earthy tones, all sizes, and a ring of green at the far outer edge that joined with the sky in a haze of aqua at the horizon. The old man forced the door of the shack open and deposited his booty inside - he gestured for Heero to do the same.  
  
"Good. That's all." The old man dismissed him with the wave of a hand.  
  
But Heero had spied something interesting just behind the door leading back into the building. The door rose up from the otherwise flat surface of the roof near the end of it; the shack was squeezed into one corner, leaving all the rest behind the door an empty lot. In this the old man had erected a solid-looking greenhouse. The various shades of green were startling against the brown-gray backgrop provided by the city and Heero was forced to stare outright. The old man stared at him with eyebrows that had sunk over his eyes, meeting in the middle to form a gray, bristling line of long hairs.  
  
Heero brought his stare back and down at the old man, who he towered over by a head in height.  
  
"How'd you get galvanized metal piping for the joints?" The old man seemed quite taken aback by the brusque manner of the question. He considered Heero with a wrinkle of his chin as he folded his bottom lip over the upper.  
  
"Friends of friends." He claimed, thrusting his chest out. Heero jeered at him, his lips forming an unkind grin.  
  
Heero approached the greenhouse until he was close enough to inspect the plants. This made the old man nervous as he kept to Heero's side, continuously chewing on the inside of his cheek.  
  
"Man, watch what you're - "  
  
"Did you get this out of a shipment of nails from Earth?"  
  
The old man sputtered.  
  
"I'd rather not say." He murmured, bristling.  
  
"Don't worry, I won't say anything."  
  
"Really." The old man resumed biting the lining of his cheek. "I don't see how you'd understand, man. You look fresh."  
  
"I'm not."  
  
"You look it, all quiet and young." The old man paused, nodding softly as though agreeing with himself on something. "Yeah, like a student, or something." He knocked his fingertips against the glass of the greenhouse reassuringly. "This, though - 'been my only reason to stay on this fucking trash heap." He kept his eyes level, staring at the greenhouse. "But I couldn't expect you to understand."  
  
They began a halting conversation, not quite focusing on anything, in the perimeters which the old man set for Heero - Heero, the young, unknowing busybody, and the old man, a seasoned, crabby personage used to inconsistent human contact. The greenhouse was what kept Heero's attention but the old man never cared to explain it - a greenhouse in the middle of a city where all the things needed to keep it up were short at hand. Heero could see his reflection in the glass walls if he tried to and he could not see what the old man did, the untried, expectant scholar. Worse - he could see all that was wrong with him this way, with the old man talking on and on about things that had nothing to do with what he said, as though what the old man needed most was an impersonal connection. Well, he had it, this was just about as impersonal as it could get.  
  
What did the old man see? What of Heero expressed scholarliness, newness? There was nothing of the sort present in Heero, not even to the onlooker - he felt more like a piece of fruit bruised and only telling of its bruises by the overripe smell it gives off.  
  
"You're a bad judge of character, ojji." The old man looked startle - he had been talking about a newspaper line he was particularly disgusted with when Heero interrupted him. Then he nodded.  
  
"Generally." Crossing his arms, he continued, "I've always seen what I first see. And now I'm past seventy, people let me do that." Pause. "I'm Cloke - this is Grenja." He patted the glass wall of the greenhouse. Heero felt his eyebrows rise.  
  
"Grenja?"  
  
"Yeah." The old man - Cloke - sounded gruff. "Grenja."  
  
Heero stared Grenja up and down before introducing himself to this new neighbor, Cloke, and Grenja, the greenhouse.  
  
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First of all, that I gave Relena such a detailed past - though it corresponds (I'm pretty sure) with the dates given in the series, everything is up to personal interpretation. I never liked it when the author included some hard to believe or make-believe account of a character's life or history, it made the story harder to believe. This was necessary, though, as Relena's entire past will have something to do with the outcome of this fic and I needed to include it to make everything consistent. In other words, you are welcome to refuse every detail or not - I'm not here to force my version of events on anyone. My main hope is that I remain consistent with the character's personality as seen in the series.  
  
Thank you so much for your support and enthusiasm, it's really appreciated. I hope you continue to enjoy this fic. ^ ^  
  
(PS: Keep your eyes open for a new story of mine, 'Clay Antlers' - it's a surprise). 


	15. Ch15 The winds of change have cousins

Disclaimer: Usual applies.  
  
I dedicate this chapter to the readers. - Becca  
  
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Heero heard the sound of seagulls crying offshore in his ear, which was odd, and not a little bit eerie, as he was in space and nowhere near a body of salty water. Perhaps these sounds resonated from old memories flapping as aptly as his clothes in a sea breeze - sea breezes that could be found at the schools he had gone to last year, both remarkably close to the Atlantic, or the time he spent with Howard on the coast of the Pacific. Mighty oceans and their clamouring minions, he heard their sounds as clearly as if he was ankle-deep in sand, waiting for the tide to come in.  
  
Physically, he could not be farther away from those conditions. He found himself on the flat, cement roof of an apartment building he sheltered in, at least ten stories high, a rectangular pillar supporting the near-invisible shell above the colony. It was easily one of the tallest buildings on the colony. Heero took a strange delight in being able to see to all corners of the colony - corners, ha!, it was round - feeling, perhaps, that he could escape immediately over the edge and into space if need be, exit doors were all around. Though, really, he had no need to be edgy - none at all.  
  
Liar. Heero twisted his neck around until he heard the bones pop in quick succession. He still studied the round horizon surrounding him. Liar, he could never bring himself to trust the voice that soothed over his alarms like a soft hand blurring his fears - nothing was that dependable. Reliable and dependable - those were not interchangable words. Reliable suggested something stronger than simply being dependable - you can depend on someone close, but can you rely on them? Food for thought, Heero knew.  
  
If only there was wind up here. But there wasn't. He felt covered in soot and ash from his travels, the constant picking up, abruptly disentangling himself from whatever he had been caught up in, and hastening to the next place, and the next, and the next, until he felt he could stop and rest and take a breath, then the next, and the next... It was a relentless existence, different from before - before had been first meaningless, then purely existential, then indifferent. Now it was relentless. Was there anything such as a satisfying existence? Heero had better stop trying to describe his every word as though closing a door were poetry, every action worth defining. He was stuck in this constant whirlwind made by his own body, his own feelings of alarm.  
  
He had seen the doctor, across a hall, in an airport terminal. The first thing that sprung to Heero's (stunned) mind was 'wily'. The doctor certainly did look wily, his weak, pointed chin bared to the world - had he lost his beard? Heero had never seen him without his beard, had never believed there was anything such as Dr. J beardless - and his slitted eyes moving when he had to stand still in a line exiting the terminal. Heero found his breath again, felt his pulse, heard it beating in his head in one of those moments when everything is still but the blood in one's head, and he could hear the screams of the doctor instructing him and the screams of the Zero pushing him at the same time. His fingers cramped at his tightened hold on the bag containing the Zero, steady against his hip.  
  
He turned, hunched his shoulders in a way that was entirely unnatural, and went on to his shuttle. It was going to take him opposite this place to a small, industrial colony, Colony U56. Heero sat rigidly, the Zero between his feet. He must have drunk four glasses of water on that flight. It took him the entire flight to realize the intense ways in which he had reacted to so familiar a foe resulted of a paranoia come true and terror. In some small way he knew he and Dr. J had yet to finish with each other but not yet! Not yet, now was too soon, far too soon. For one thing, he still had the Zero. With the Zero still in his possession, he felt much more in danger than he would with only his hands and teeth to fight the old man. Old man! Dr. J was becoming an old man, yet he still was to be fought.  
  
Heero was jumpy now. It took days to settle down. He found a place to stay - small, only two rooms, with a view that opened up on all the rooftops spread about far below - and places to get food cheaply. He sometimes felt like burning his clothes, his bag - after certain missions he used to do that, in case anyone had seen him in those things, in case anything from the crime scene still clung to him. But he was suddenly an incredible pennypincher - his face grew pinched, his ribs stood out in a way that, while not unhealthy, reminded him he should eat more. Circles he had always had under his eyes grew darker. His clothes grew to feel like his second skin, soft, without putting up any resistance, and colorless. Habit made him wash himself regularly, launder his clothes weekly, appear minimally taken care of and out of the way. It was the traveling without a clear end or result that gave him a glimmer of hopelessness. He had grown used to expecting something for his efforts, good or bad, often bad - constantly going from place to place, often with less and less of his own things, wore him down.  
  
Still no wind. Heero moved away from the ledge and heard, abruptly, the sound of a door opening and being shut one-handedly, slamming back into its frame.  
  
He turned, watching the other, new occupant of the roof.  
  
An old man shuffled into view and, taken aback at the sight of the young man near the ledge, raised eyebrows that had grown long and curling into archs over small, wrinkled eyes. He held a large sack of something indescribable.  
  
"Eh-yah?" He gruffed. "Whatcha' doing up here?" Heero stared at him, hard, thinking fast. The old man pursed thin lips, moistened with spit but very dry and cracked. "If you think of...eh, help me here, this's getting heavy." He dropped the bag, it fell with a stunted Thud. Then he walked on to a wall that separated one half of the roof from the other - a cement wall with a heavily barred door to which the old man held up keys. "Well? Do I have to yell for you?" He laughed, a surprisingly wholehearted sound. "You more deaf than me?"  
  
He was at least seventy. Heero headed for the bag and picked it up, feeling the weight (it was heavy, how long had the old man kept it with him?). Glancing up, he saw the old man waiting, and advanced. He had to lean to one side with the bag in one hand; it leaned against his thigh, making walking in a straight line awkward.  
  
He stopped once he was past the door the old man held out for him. He heard the lock click behind him and stiffened, the bag yet in his hand.  
  
"Come on, you just gon'a stand there?" The old man blinked up into Heero's face; he had to crane his neck a little, standing at just above five foot. "I don't know you, do I?"  
  
Heero shook his head.  
  
"Just as well." The old man blinked a little more. "I'm Cloke Ikjen, if the conversation ever gets around to that." Heero paused before tilting his head quizzically.  
  
"Iceland?" The old man gave him an appraising look.  
  
"Thereabouts."  
  
Heero glanced around; along the wall sat more bags, like a line of drunks that had fallen asleep on the street. After a questioning glance in Ikjen's direction he set the one he held against the rest, then stepped back. Turning around, he felt startled at the sight of a squat little greenhouse set in the middle of that half of the cement roof, one to which Ikjen now advanced in the most familiar manner. The old man glanced over his shoulder at Heero and gestured for him to follow.  
  
"This here's mine." He pointed out. Heero felt a frown tighten his face.  
  
"Mmh." He managed to grumble.  
  
It was not the presence of the greenhouse - like a serene little glass buddah bursting with green stuff - that bothered him as much as its components: glass, which was extremely pricy, even on a colony whose population was almost entirely involved in the industry of turning raw materials into products, therefore who must have had easier access to glass; the metal trimmings holding the glass sheets together, which came of specialized work and could not be bought from this colony; the plants themselves came from earth, or the seeds once had. Obviously Ikjen's privacy - the cement wall cutting any other visitors off his greenhouse - had cost something since very few apartment buildings gave so much to its leasers. How had the old man gotten to so many materials during war times? Heero knew this colony had been affected by the war, it was not one of the few immune no matter that it was a distance from where any of the fighting had occured. On pondering it the situation felt very bizarre.  
  
The old man continued to stare at the younger, growing more perplexed with the silence as it continued.  
  
"So...what?" Heero took a moment before he responded by glancing back down at Ikjen.  
  
"Did you build this?"  
  
"Pretty much."  
  
"How did you get the materials?" The appraising look gained suspicion and Heero knew himself to be walking on eggshells.  
  
"I don't know what you mean." Ikjen waved him off, heading for the door with a key in his hand. "You better leave now." Heero allowed himself to be ushered out, feeling the old man's rough, bent fingers at his elbow when he was almost out the door. "Thanks for your help." Heero turned to watch the door close, now barred from Cloke Ikjen's greenhouse. He couldn't blame the old man for his behavior: he had acted oddly, quiet, then questioning. He would never have trusted himself where he in the old man's place. But it was not for him to hide himself anymore: as long as Dr. J could not catch up to him he could afford to make people uneasy. Besides, it warded them off.  
  
He started for the stairs leading to his apartment on the twentieth floor. There were two working elevators which he didn't use - fire hazards.  
  
He needed a break.  
  
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When she worked, she missed meals. Whether through a lack of attention paid on her part or a dismissive attitude, Relena shirked eating regularly. It was something of a nasty cycle - Relena would stay up late, and in the morning not feel terribly hungry, some toast and a few cups of tea would tide her over until midday. She ate again when she felt hungry, maybe five hours later, then work herself into a lightheaded sweat for another three hours before eating what could pass as a full meal. By then (late afternoon) she would be absorbed into yet another thing that required her full attention and so she would pass into the evening full of ideas but empty of nourishment. Ah, to be young again. Something in her cramping gut seemed to remind her she wouldn't be able to committ the same folly a decade from then as all that saved her from a constant headache was her youth.  
  
At least, that was they system slowly being worked out into full-fledged habit until Mrs. Darlian came along on the trips. As a mother notices the physical wellbeing of her brood she raised her eyebrows at Relena picking at her food daintily, one hand holding up something for her to read, usually a piece she had written the day before and was reading over for corrections. The first few times she only nudged her daughter toward food, a bowl of strawberries-and-yogurt, an omelette, these small baked vegetable pies that were light enough on the stomach to act as breakfast food. Relena ate with indifference - she didn't care, she could always catch something later, if she so desired, and mornings were ideal for correctional reading because nothing important was scheduled then.  
  
Mrs. Darlian began meeting other people at the hotel they stayed at, mostly travelers like herself, a Mr. Eggardt especially. Mr. Eggardt was in advertising but on vacation at the moment, visiting family, and they often took tours around the nearer part of the city, usually ending up at some lunching place to discuss family and Mr. Eggardt's boyfriend back on Earth (Mr. Eggardt was fourty, his boyfriend thirty-eight, and don't let anyone tell you that only two years is hardly any difference at all, it is...).  
  
"Reynold, if you're on vacation, why didn't you bring Marcus along?"  
  
"Ha-hmm, well, 'vacation' means the same as 'funeral' in my family, and Marcus and my family don't get along - oh, no, they're just very quarrelsome, he's the most agreeable fellow, and when there's a funeral - well, they just get very chapped, its very hard to get along with them."  
  
"Oh, is the funeral nearby?"  
  
"Second colony over, right next door."  
  
Relena worked doggedly, only it wasn't the kind of work her mother found suitable for one at the age to go University. It was awkward sometimes, not disagreeable. When Mrs. Darlian felt she should be holding up flashcards for a quiz or looking over a paper she helped Relena file reports on the latest going on in her team and briefed Relena with lists Relena made.  
  
"Tomorrow?"  
  
"See Elderidge about committee, finish X0-1, begin on X0-9."  
  
"Thursday?"  
  
"Uhm...lunch with Mrs. Barrow, shuttle to Colony R-53 for the afternoon (back at eight PM) to meet with Rigolda's team." - and so on.  
  
One evening Mrs. Darlian prepared to go downstairs for dinner only to find Relena in the bathroom filling a shallow tub the size of a hat box with steaming water. She was dressed in the most casual clothes she had along.  
  
"You're not coming downstairs for dinner?" Relena straightened, the tub in her hands, and shook her head.  
  
"I have a small headache coming on, so I'm going to stay here for tonight, if you don't mind." Her mother shook her head.  
  
"No, it's alright, as long as - you're not coming down with anything, are you?"  
  
"No, no, don't worry. I'll eat with you tomorrow. Have a good time."  
  
"Thank you. Well...I'll be downstairs if you need me."  
  
Relena let her out and shut the door quietly, slowly turning the lock. She brought the tub of steaming water to the couch, set it on the floor, and sat down. Leaning over she then rolled the pantlegs of her spare pajama suit up to her knees and eased her feet into the hot water - it hurt at first, but she had been on her feet plenty, it felt. Leaning back, she raised her head until she felt herself cushioned from the bottom of her spine to the crown of her head, eyes staring up at the ceiling. Doing nothing.  
  
She had to pump her feet to keep from feeling cooked, but the hot water made a difference. She was wearing flats tomorrow, no more of that pump nonsense.  
  
Light filtered in from outside through the almost sheer, white canvas curtains hanging in front of open windows. No breeze. She felt - not tired - sapped. Like one of those maple trees that people used to get syrup from. Amazing, that something as childishly luxurious as syrup came from trees. Syrup from trees, honey from bees, milk from cows...  
  
She didn't realize she was falling asleep until she saw the light fade - light didn't fade that fast, not in a place where, technically, there was no night. The structure of colonies had a device along the rim of a colony that threw up a dark, gelled matter stretching over the glass shell above a colony, darkening it for a few hours, letting the citizens experience something they felt was their right to having. But this was not it, this was just her eyelides closing, blotting out the breezeless, light daylight in a room so seamlined it was the picture of modern simplicity.  
  
She had an easy, if restless sleep, full of peeping dreams that ran about unended. One of her mother, growing old, smiling benignly in a way Relena had never known - her mother was the model of well-to-do widow/mother, but she could be very fierce. Another was of a long creeping shadow following her along streets that burnt under unforgiving sunlight, the pavement steaming, a bright, untamed yellow growing black under her feet.  
  
Then she felt a deep, forceful wind unseat her, carrying her where it chose to go but playing pranks on her hair and snagging at her clothes - it pinched and teased, the trickster, until she had nothing on, riding continuously on a mighty air current, above thunderheads and the fleecy kind of clouds that made you want to a paint, using them as your brush. Being naked herself, seated as comfortably as on her father's chair in the study, back home, was utterly moving - the wind combed through her toes, passed along the back of her ear, around her hairline. She moved as restlessly as her dreams did. She was, finally, an unchallenged spirit.  
  
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I apologize that this chapter isn't the usual length. I hope you enjoyed this - I know it was (very) long in coming. Thank you so much for your support! - Becca 


	16. Ch16 Universal Answers

Disclaimer: Usual applies.  
  
Here we go. ^ ^ Enjoy!  
  
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Heero often cooked his own food; simple things, like pasta or french toast, recipes requiring few ingredients and a casual approach to preparing it. The small fridge he kept in the corner of the main room held all of maybe four things at a time: a bottle of milk, enough for two days, some margarine, eggs and bread. As he was a chronic label-reader, haunting a set of shelves in a grocery store for as long as a quarter of an hour searching for what was right, he knew the difference between calorie intake and low-carb, low-sugar foods - the difference between margarine and butter - the advantages to bread with fewer additives, preservatives. He considered making bread sometime as it was said to be difficult, mainly involving good timing and a knack for knowing how much, but as yet he just bought a loaf of whatever every few days when he saw he was running out.  
  
It was a solitary, busying activity, very unlike what he knew. He could involve himself in the food; as he was the only taste-tester to please, he could focus on preparing the food just as he would like it. And it was quiet and open up where he was: he cooked, ate, dressed and slept in front of the same, large window occupying most of the wall facing out onto the city.  
  
His apartment consisted of two rooms, actually a very disproportional description: the one room he really lived in contained a mattress on the floor, a small table that he could fold together, two chairs that didn't match, and a small stove-and-sink combination with a single cupboard. As the floor, walls and ceilings were the uniform gray of untouched concrete he laid out rugs to at least differentiate between where the walls and floor began. Off to the side stood a cramped bathroom with a small glassed-in stall for a shower and a sink he had been scrubbing at diligently for the past few days, relieving it of layers of grime.  
  
Up above (he was on the twentieth floor: this apartment building had a total of thirty floors) he heard the consistent murmur of loud orchestral or opera music: the occupant, whom he passed on the stairwell every blue moon or so, was an old bitty of a woman with a hearing disability: she had been a concert leader in years earlier and loved music, but she had to turn it up to the highest volume to enjoy it. Heero didn't mind: it meant he heard very good music whenever he was at home, floating down from Mrs. Chavelier's snug-a-bug hole in the wall.  
  
Heero glanced out the window and over the city as he spooned scrambled eggs onto a plate: carrying these to the little table he sat, still entranced by the view. Apart from the startling height at which he viewed it there was nothing special about it: lots of little gray roofs varying in tone, some factories farther out, patches of green that indicated parks. But it was an all-absorbing view, one in which he could sink himself in. And there was no one to interrupt him: he could sit like this for a long time without moving, seemingly without having thought or heard or really seen anything until he moved, breaking the trance he kept himself in.  
  
Heero's intial anxieties after seeing the doctor in so crowded a place as the airport had unsettled him deeply: the timing, he felt acutely, was very, very wrong. There was supposed to be some sort of climax, a milestone to pass, before he could relinquish the Zero to its true owner, its bioligical parent, or whatever else might happen then. It was so far in the future - yet another thing his instincts told him - the exact results or circumstances were hard to foretell. He preferred his bleak surroundings and solitary life, right now, the act of living in a moment so stretched out he could see no end to it, though it would feel like only a second passed when it was finally over. This felt like a selfmade purgatory: he was here before he would meet the Judge of his life, the person who had set him up from the beginning.  
  
Did this make him an atheist? No, no, this had nothing to do with religion. Heero thought along that vein for a while, pondering on what kind of a person he would be where he to become an atheist. A non-believer. Would anyone blame him? Dr. J would find it hilarious. Dr. J was an atheist, to be sure. No one could freely give so much hell without being one unless they were looking for some sort of redemption in the form of horrible misdeeds...yet another thought Dr. J would find humourous, in his own dry, scornful way.  
  
He chewed slowly, making the small meal last. He knew, in a disjointed, felt-out way come of groping in the dark of a mind unlit, a conscious purposely ignoring the switch to the bulb overhead, that his somewhat haggard appearance had given him this apartment, this clean, threadbare freedom. He impressed upon people the appearance of someone aged beyond recognition - it baffled a person. No one would have given a minor an apartment but no one knew he was underaged. He lied to their faces and they took the lies, almost afraid of what would happen were they to stretch a hand out for the truth.  
  
The truth? Heero thought a moment. I am alone, utterly alone, more alone than most people are willing to be. I experience spiritual drought and mental wear. People have worn my thoughts and ideas until they ripped the seams and I had to get new ones.  
  
I have felt poetry where you only read it.  
  
I have laughed with Insanity and played tricks with it on innocents. I felt its arm around my neck in the threatening, brotherly manner of a one-armed hug. I once was made aware that there was no difference between Insanity and Sanity; they are as identical twins.  
  
I've seen my future in the fall of my teacher: I didn't like it and now seek a future torn from the old, so I'm not sure if this blindness will end when I finally reach my new, alternate ending.  
  
I am too young for a lot of things, too young to settle down, too young to lease an apartment, too young for real sex, though I wouldn't mind - I think - experiencing the mind-blowing kind. I am too young to shave.  
  
I feel dangerous in the constraints of my own mind as I am still getting used to the law that people need rules to live. I hadn't ever thought I'd live before. Life always seemed a rug about to be pulled from under my feet.  
  
I have found eyes that match mine and an expression of feeling that echo my own. I have found one of the Ultimate Answers in this universe: people never quite see what they really have in common, have 'in identical', with others because they just don't, won't see it - others do, others always find that grain of a person's character in another because they're neither person, and as being neither person puts them on higher ground, they can say - You are the same!  
  
Are these truths that anyone wants to here? Of course not. It would frighten the daylights out of the poor lady who leased him this apartment, worried he was a runaway from a rehab center, or the man on the curb who sold dark bread and homemade jam, the glazed look of his eyes telling the customer he only saw other people as ghosts with purses.  
  
In this, Heero was very gentle: doling out lies where truths would sear and burn.  
  
Heero turned the faucet on and began scrubbing at his plate. He used to do the dishes when he still trained with Dr. J: the practice made this quick chore last less than a minute. He put the dish, fork and knife in their customary place in the cupboard. Then he pulled down a mug and started coffee brewing. He almost never went to bed at a normal hour, usually working at his laptop until he felt sleepy or his eyes became grainy. They did nowadays, since he only had one, rather dim light to use when the colony darkened for its pretend night. The music upstairs turned off at around ten in the evening: traffic quieted below: roof-parties gave bright bursts of color to what would otherwise be a boring part of colony life. He would arrange his mattress a few feet from the window, to cushion his body when he sat unmoving but for wandering eyes and moving fingers, so as to get off as much as possible on this life he now led, this life apart from - everything. Separate and mostly severed but for a small string that yet attached to him the conveniences and speed of the modern world.  
  
Where he was as a monk in a one-man monastery his laptop connected him to everything. He didn't receive orders or business through it anymore as he had found ways of being completely self-sufficient. The internet could tell him everything - if not directly it suggested or affirmed what he already guessed. Heero was adept at internet usage, most especially methods of tracking down and exhuming files of things he wanted to know. Given time he found Howard's new post - Howard subscribed to a magazine sold only in the region of the country he lived in, under a different name: the "Metal Clinic Gazette". Heero thought he spotted a place Dr. J had been in, but it was always hard to tell as Dr. J excelled at not being seen. Heero also read up on Relena's doings and going-ons, examining recent photos showing her with her mother, Mrs. Darlian, and various team members, studying articles on her objectively.  
  
For the weeks to come he kept to his apartment, walked about the city only at daytime, and talked with few people - he knew very few people, to begin with, and he had no interest or investment in knowing more than the number he did. He was an established recluse, for the time being. One of the few he saw regularly was Cloke Ikjen, the Icelander.  
  
Cloke spoke softly but he was, by nature, a gruff character, both physically and spiritually old. Little but his memories remained or felt young to him. He spoke with a bluntness that Heero didn't question and that he relished: it was unlike the sarcastic, cutting remarks Dr. J served up like acid in wineglasses. Often, though, they disagreed with each other: when they did, they kept to the 'agree to disagree' rule.  
  
Heero helped drag up bags of things for Cloke Ikjen several more times before the old man softened to his presence. From then on, Heero went to the roof almost daily, where Cloke could be found in or around the greenhouse. All it took was knocking at the door.  
  
Best of all: they could say nothing to each other all afternoon and neither would feel slighted.  
  
"I wish it would rain here, once in a while." Heero glanced at Cloke, the sweat gleaming on the wrinkled forehead. "It would make my part a mite easier. I've seen greenhouses - bigger than this! - with these - hinges - and stuff on the roof that would open it up whenever rain came. Then drains in the ground would carry the runoff excess to be stored underneath until needed. Neat, yeah?"  
  
Cloke looked up at the sky as though to check that no rain would fall to render his statement pointless. He tightened his grip on his small hoeing instrument and began working the soil in a long, trench-like bed again. Heero sat outside on an old sack to help ward off the hardness of the concrete. He watched.  
  
He usually just watched.  
  
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They were often there, on the street corner, singing. French songs, if his ear was right. Three lightly browned girls, as though they had been shoved into a toaster oven for a bit. Around them, it felt like early summer, warm, lightly fragnant, fresh and drowsy. Along those streets he came up against a lot of things - the voices of so many, mingling; the burnt sweat smell of noxious body odor; a sense, not quite a smell, of the industry that ran this city, underscoring the purpose of everyone's life there; the abrupt aplomb of a flower shop, bravely surviving in a place without any natural gardens (at least, not natural by his standards, though in a few generations, it would seem natural enough).  
  
Those girls. They sang quickly, fluently, unintentionally charming but with all intent of being coy. They had high voices.  
  
Heero's attention would never have been brought to them had one of them not - purposely, he knew - bumped into him, upsetting a bag of groceries. She made him spill a bottle of milk! What had started as a girlish try at playing tricks became a blushing affair of murmured apologies and then her running off to get him another bottle of milk. So he stayed, watching her leave, watching her return, his face a set expression of stony, unwavering indifference - it just made her stammer, when she had never stammered before! And he hadn't meant to be so mean-looking, so grim, so - turned-off by her very presence! (What, did she have 'cooties' written across her chest or something?!).  
  
Other than that, he hadn't any contact with the strangers on the street, and that had been one time. (The girl steadfastly refused to meet his eye after that, even though she followed him with her quizzical gaze whenever his back was turned).  
  
Heero kept track of the colony's orbit around earth, and the orbit of some other colonies that held interest to him. He even signed up for both the competing newspapers there, and often bought one from Earth that he got at a small corner shop selling various stuff - the shop was called Tabac. It made his hands look less empty, walking about with a newspaper, settling on a bench half in the shade with it and reading. He could catch up much quicker, and cheaper, using his laptop but he desired something material, tangible.  
  
Slowly but surely, he developed a routine. He saw Cloke often, solving the unconscious need for both human contact and interaction (though Cloke was a very poor substitute for the rest of humanity, being very cross, sometimes whiny, and not the best of conversationalists - he enjoyed trying to get a rise out of Heero whenever the younger somehow 'won' in their verbal competitions, though each attempt failed quickly under Heero's quiet refusal to react). Heero walked the length and width of the colony, exploring its workings, even going under the city to where he saw the bowels of what kept it afloat; he stayed up late and woke at almost the same time every day, and ate much the same things his entire stay.  
  
In the neighborhood he stayed at - after just two weeks of living there Heero began to recognize slight differences in his surroundings and those of other, farther-off places that finally put the city into squares of territory - he went to a certain washer's for his clothes and certain grocery stores. He walked on much the same streets, even though he had gone along and knew every other ally and passageway in the area. As there were no 'sights' to be seen he was spared the tourism that was gradually growing in Space as Earth citizens became more interested in their far-off brethren, the other part of their race.  
  
He felt he was still searching for more Universal Answers. Those, though, are hard to come by in general and that he had was only through the extensive knowledge of an enemy. Had it not been for Treize, he would never have touched on that Universal Answer. Perhaps he was better off not knowing more.  
  
Curiosity killed the cat.  
  
Treize winked from the dark depths of death, mouthing this.  
  
- but...Heero had time to live now.  
  
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I know, this is very short (in comparison to what I usually write) - regardless, I feel this is one of my more poetic efforts. There's writing from a person's POV and then writing from inside a person's head: this was the latter. It was a little scary. Heero is becoming less 2-D and more 3-D in my mind all the time - and since he's changing into something more solid now I am only able to throw the right things in his way to make him go along the story line I picked out. It's kind of exciting. And I finally feel like time is really passing now! - before I was almost writing these guys' DIARIES, it was so day to day to day to day.....  
  
Constructive criticism would be welcome here, I feel I took a lot of, erm, creative license in this chapter with Heero's character - I want to keep him as much IN character as is possible, and your opinion would help greatly. I appreciate your (reader's) support and enthusiasm - I hope you like this chapter. (Please review. ^ ^). 


	17. Ch17 No Earthworms

Disclaimer: Usual applies.  
  
'No Earthworms'

Though the focus of her life, presently, lay in politics, therefore also in the tumbling and vast chaos of some of the most severe and contrary ideas in the world, really no more than a civilized bar fight, Relena found herself unalterably - unusually - silently alone. A part of her had seen it coming - her mother knew about it and knew the extent of its reach better than she did due to experiences of the late Mr. Darlian - and the rest of her was astonished and dismayed at her role in her own life now. Because she was not at all the person she was when she had entered this - what was it, a civilized bar fight? Her world had picked and nipped at her until she was a mannequin with ragged canvas skin. What loved her best and did loyal by her the most also bit at her heels to keep her moving. Did this make sense?  
  
She had met at least a thousand people since January, when her duties had expanded - explosively - to include this project. Relations between Earth and the colonies were so fragile and dear, she felt as though she had been made guardian of a spider's web nestled in the gutter of a busy street. She was always running forward to catch this, save that, support this, give to that, pay and tax and be taxed and pay some more and advertise and campaign and pay for the campaigning and meet and shake hands and knock heads and lock horns and kick up dirt with frayed heels - the pace of her life quickened while the clocks remained unchanged, the manners by which she kept time staid the same as always and it was bewildering. On a shuttle ride between colonies she had calculated, in her head, which she had to remember she did because that allowed for some margin of error in her calculations, that to complete everything would take forty-two hours. Forty-two hours! Almost a full two days and nights, all without rest or eating! She remembered that moment very clearly because it marked the start of a series of headaches that came with lack of sleep.  
  
Alright, so she had met at least a thousand people since January, so, January, February...in three months and two weeks she had managed to meet a thousand people. Well, that must be some kind of record, right? Or if not, she must be big competition for those few ahead in the running.  
  
Indeed, it was mid-March. March always brought to mind a spring in one's step, a hop up on a staircase, skipping steps while dragging one's weight up by the banister. There had been any number of tall, winding staircases in her house on Earth, and Relena the child had hung onto the banister with both hands and yanked herself up - it always took a long time to do so, because her legs were, naturally, longer than her arms and they sometimes - how embarrassing! - got in the way, and she would trip and otherwise hurt herself in some odd place, bang herself under her arm so that a blue bruise would bloom just south of her armpit, or, in one case, she would have two parallel stripes of purpling-yellow coloring the bumps of her ribs on one side where she'd fallen into the banister backwards. Relena the child hadn't been all that afraid of hurts and aches, though, not because of whatever ridiculous theory adults came up with about a child's sense of immortality creating fearlessness in their hearts but just a sense of being able to wind one's way higher and higher - that sense of being one's downfall and triumph at the same time, all at the risk of a banged-up knee or the like, that was all worth it, all the odd little bruises and discolorings, so she would continue to pull herself up by the arms, her eyes fastened eagerly on the thin crests of her wrists turned sideways at an interesting angle, her slippery hands grabbing hotly for some hold on the polished wood banister, just glad she'd worn shoes instead of socks since socks causes you to lose your footing so easily like that baby goat on the television screen yesterday...  
  
As though lightheadedness was some kind of magic she remembered all the names of all the people she'd met - not the entire one thousand, but she could piece name to face very quickly now. That senator with the aneroxic model-daughter, the upturned nose that belonged to Ms. Hiddleston, the square, clean fingernails that were a telling detail of Mr. Yangtel's person, that one a former felon - oh but that was years ago, decades - that one somehow managed to become Senior Executive by replacing failed or retired predecessors, the list was eeeeeennndlesssss. And Relena came up with some detail of a past conversation, some hint of what they wanted, immediately, and used it - because, of course -  
  
- what is more fascinating, more flattering, than a near-stranger remembering something you'd said even a month or two ago, however small and insignificant?  
  
There were some drawbacks - ha! - to Relena the person and Relena the child taking a backseat to Relena at the Head of Life. She didn't pack - or unpack! - any of her things now, but had someone else take care of all that. Almost in exchange for remaining constantly open to everything, even suggestions or methods contrary to what she publicly supported, much less thought privately, she cut meetings short, she dismissed more opportunities to travel on other projects, and chose to stay for the sake of being in one place all at the same time, to complete some work. It became an important part of her life to have her stomach and head in the same room, not separated by jet lag. She developed, besides those headaches, a manner that came across as reluctant politeness, in which her fingers cramped up, her eyebrows bunched up, creating a frown and puffiness in her young face that hadn't been there at all as recently as New Year's.  
  
As though in stubborn refusal to change anymore than that, Relena let herself be wrung dry of conclusive thought to satisfy, politely, kindly, and civilly, the affections of her staff and colleagues while giving the rest of herself over to the protection and wellbeing of her people (a population that had now expanded to an arguable size). Economically, things were on the rocks in the colonies, and politically, still a scrambled mess. As one of the few politicians never to have drunk of Oz or Alliance blood she could wind between Earth and the colonies with much more flexibility than her coworkers, all who could, at any point, break out into argument about the two organizations (so long dead, according to Relena's train of thought, that to argue at all was an excuse for everyone else to leave the room). While not actually possessing these elements in her character she could be curt and even short-tempered - but the moment was so brief and so pained that those who were at the receiving end of her impatience felt silly to try her so again in the future, or any of her group.  
  
And she could not ignore elections. This is where her mother's help became a godsend. Her mother, politician's wife that she was, could not have been a better organiser - so Relena left that up to her. Mrs. Darlian executed the campaign for her daughter's reelection (she had resigned herself that it was to be so) with precision and discretion. Instead of being open on all sides to interference in her work Relena now had a solid wall at her back to help fight -  
  
- because that was what this was about now. She fought, daily, the effects of tension and false information and bad blood between the Earth and the colonies, and planned for it strategically, as any lieutenant might. Because - and would you believe it? -  
  
- there was so much more than the war that stood between the two neighbors, Earth and Space. There was too much there to mention, and so much of it hollow and wrong, habits that continued distrust and dislike between people. The structure of their economics and government and needs were now different and slowly becoming more and more estranged from each other. The need to have this difference taught and explored was becoming more and more necessary, but when - oh, when would anyone find the time?  
  
And therefore, Relena grew alone. A little hollow in her head allowed her personal space and rest and quiet: she coud close her eyes and see herself there, sitting on a bench in her wrap-around gray sweater (one she wore on all shuttle rides now, to protect against the dry air and natural cold of the interiors), hair around her shoulders, her expression lax and just the tiniest bit exhausted. She sat hunched, her eyes not quite closed, but unfocused and staring at the ground. Always, the air was cool, it felt as though it had been hemmed in around her, a sheet of air to fit the space in the hollow of her head. Words couldn't carry across the air there: a sense of slowness kept things peaceful. The ground was slightly frosted, each blade of grass crunchy with its dusting of ice, the cement of the bench and path leading out - of that hollow in her head - cold to the touch.  
  
She sat underneath one of those arches along which climbing flowers had been trained to grow. But these flowers, like the grass, were slightly frosted, their colors muted to fit the rest of her hollow, her nook, their smell stamped out by something like the closing of autumn. It was here Relena sometimes found herself, in this soothing gray place, unintentionally or because she wanted to be there, and where she let herself sit without making a single movement.

The sun shone quite brilliantly onto the ground, giving everything a golden sheen. Sweat rolled down his back - between his shoulder blades, where he couldn't reach the itch sweat and grit combined to make - and along his chest, making his shirt stick and hang like a wet rag. Heero's face was swamped in the shadow of his wide-brimmed hat, one that faintly itched with the perspiration gathering at his hairline and the nape of his neck. He dug relentlessly in a bed of dirt, hands bare, fingernails grubby, that bit of a hangnail making him hiss from time time. With the the help of constant sun and little protection from it he was very brown, his hair a little bleached on the crown of his head. But just lightly.  
  
He had never tried gardening before. It was not as simple as he'd at first thought. There was a mindless rythm to the activity that lulled and sweetened: it required a lack of thought outside that foot-by-foot square of earth, endurance, patience. He rather enjoyed the mindlessness: it was a solid change from what he'd done before.  
  
Which had been nothing.  
  
Just a note: he was not on the colony anymore, oh, far from it. He was very far from it - this was as far south in space as you could go, presently.  
  
There was a thick, muted quality to the air he listened attentively to. Colors appeared stronger here, smells bigger - noises came to one as something yelled into one's ear, too close and loud. In fact, Heero found conversational noises garish in this atmosphere - as though the voices of the people around him were packed in too close, wrapped around into a strangle hold he could not get out of. This would, under other circumstances, have been enough reason to leave. But here, people shared this little dislike, and other than the necessary bits and pieces, little was spoken. Even more to his advantage, then: he was not required to say much, and his general discretion and solitude was appreciated rather than wondered at here.  
  
He sat up and back on his heels, looking over his work: everything had been thoroughly done. Then he looked up, at the thick, foggy shell overhead: thicker than what one would see on normal colonies, a distinct phlegm-like color, it filtered sunlight in differently to suit plant life. The moisture in the air and in the earth was warm with the sun, a sticky kind of heat like too many bodies smushed together. Smells collected around him, that of dirt and sweat and sweat-stained clothing. His sweat, his clothing. He had to go wash these.  
  
All the caretakers lived underneath the fields in windowless complexes that, while just as suffocating in feel because of the squat, low-ceilinged rooms and steel walls, were air-conditioned, the circulated air always cool and dry. There was a communal washroom near the entrance with connecting showers next door. Heero went there, stripping his shirt from his body as he entered the washroom. He peeled off the rest of his clothing and put it all in the washer, one of the smaller ones, before heading into the men's shower room. On the way, he grabbed a towel (if only for decency's sake...).  
  
Caretakers took quick showers because the water was always cold and 'sprays were too expensive to install. The showers' floors were smooth and tiled, set a slight tilt towards the middle of the room where the water ran to, and the walls were a dulled white. But standing naked and shivering with a thick spray of water blasting on top of his head, Heero didn't bother diverting himself with these details. He raked his hands and some soap over his body, sloughing away the dirt he felt always remained in the depths of his bores now, considering his work. Then, hair dripping, he turned the water off and scrubbed himself dry.  
  
Back in the washroom with the wet towel draped around his hips, Heero took out the wet laundry and shoved it into one of the dryers. Ten minutes later he took them out, shook the larger wrinkls out, and pulled them back on. Large, gaping holes made the knees of his pants sag below the calf, but in this way Heero managed to lengthen the leg without actually buying new pants. Fully dressed again Heero left the stilted, echoing quiet of the washroom and went back upstairs.  
  
The sun and heat made him sweat heavily almost immediately. Three other caretakers presently worked in the two fields, but everyone else was underground. Heero left them to their work and wandered into the shade offered by a vine that had clambered it's way up the frame of a cupola, its leaves spread out to catch sunlight at the back. It's shadow hung steeply over Heero; a bench had been set up with its back to it and he sat down there....  
  
His back ached a little from bending over for so long, and his arms and shoulders were tender. His clothes felt rough as clothes tend to do right after being washed. Heero looped his arms around his knees, popping out of the legs of his pants, and settled against the hard, unforgiving backrest of the bench.  
  
He didn't even have the newspapers anymore - those he had given up along with the colony. And that had already been a while ago... he remembered, with painful clarity, the moment he'd known it was time to pack up again: he thought he'd tracked Dr. J down again - it could have been Dr. J, but as was usual, almost expected, with the man, one could not be completely sure. From the way he was moving he was still looking for Heero - or so rang Heero's theory once he'd studied the routes Dr. J chose to move along, a kind of erratic criss-crossing of space. Heero immediately thought of places he could go - this reaction alone surprised him. He had been in one place for so long, immobile, that he took for granted his feelings concerning Dr. J. Until now, it was just assumed, since he obviously felt comfortable staying in one place for so long, that meeting with Dr. J again would be alright, that now it was - but it hadn't been, not at all, the right time, and Heero, very efficientl, disentangled himself from the colony and left it.  
  
But, sitting in the shade, he was surprised at how many - memories - came to him of that stay. Traveling before that had been a fast-moving blur through space, a cat-and-mouse game, a dare, I dare you to catch me!, but that stay on the colony had brought about interesting results.  
  
Like the girl who had spilled his milk.  
  
And Ikjen, someone so far removed from the running, breathing world he had long become a relic telling his own story.  
  
The vendors with their colorful carts amidst the wary backdrop of the industrial cityscape.  
  
Days and nights in which he didn't move from his mattress on the floor or the roof's cement floor, close to where Ikjen worked constantly in his greenhouse - nights when he would wander from rooftop to rooftop, ordays in which he would spend the hours crawling about the bowels of the colony, amidst the working pistons and clack-clack-clack-clack-clack of the machinery underneath the city.  
  
It all came back to him, a vivid picture...  
  
TBC  
  
This is too short for my taste, but I wanted to convince you guys that I was really still around. Hello again, everyone! 


	18. Ch18, Part 1 Connecting the dots

Disclaimer: Usual applies.  
Ch18, PART 1

Space and Earth had long since been growing into two distinctly different economies - goverend by very different methods. Generally, communication was easier on earth, as was mail and other delivered goods and the transportation of produce. A mexican mango, for instance, could make it to Europe within the day. In space, however, communication had only recently been opened up to the masses - for the fifteen years that the war had lasted communications between colonies had been prohibited and even within the Alliance, the reigning power at the time, tightly supervised. With the dismantling of this came a rush of confusion: communication between the colonies was still a largely unorganized activity, and it was estimated to take another year before it could be properly overseen.  
  
Travel, however, had boomed. When companies stopped legally making weaponry and MS, the best alternative was developing a line of transportation vehicles.Of course they didn't stop there: since the colonies themselves were just large machines, projects for a metro system connecting all within a colony was being considered, and the materials used would come of the now-obsolete mobile suit parts and all the accessories. Small cart-like vehicles for public transportation in the streets were being developed at that very moment, to be tested on the moon where tourism was slowly making a promising comeback. Last but not least, functional vehicles were quickly produced and turned out by the hundreds - there to do whatever gritty, laborous duties needed performing. All were based on old models originally meant for places on Earth - tractors, cement trucks, cranes - but revamped to be of use in Space, were breathing room itself was limited and sources of fuel dear. Hence the new line of functional vehicles: cementors, hovers (used to drag or carry heavy loads), Arms, Junkers. Junkers were unwieldy, boxy and meant for wandering about in space on its own: its main use was to pick up all the flotsam floating about in space, from pieces of armory lost in old battles to frozen blocks of urine (in all seriousness, imagine a three foot high, two feet thick chunk of frozen urine traveling at eighty miles an hour and smashing into a shuttle - it was always a big insurance risk!).  
  
Of course, none of this explains how Duo became a Junker (the term given to the garbage collectors operating Junker shuttles). But he did, sometime in February. The best reaction to the news came from Hilde, who had innocently wandered over with a bag of basic household necessities (toilet paper and fruit, which Duo seemed to run out of without realizing it) when she was informed.  
  
"Hilde, look at my uniform!"  
  
"Duo, you owe me - what's that?!"  
  
"My uniform!"  
  
"That's a Junker uniform, Duo. Why are you in a Junker uniform?"  
  
"It makes sense, doesn't it? I'm a Junker now!"  
  
"Since when? You owe me money, Duo."  
  
"Since last week, but I wasn't sure until they sent me this."  
  
"Why didn't you tell me earlier?"  
  
"I wanted to be sure I got the job." He was beaming at her and she disliked herself for having to question him so, having to give him some reason to stop being cheery so she could have a straightforward answer.  
  
"Duo, please, explain this to me."  
  
"Alright." She really did look bewildered. Hilde sat down, the groceries forgotten on the counter of Duo's small kitchen, and waited. Now he took a moment to pause and gather his thoughts. "See...I need the extra income. I'm not giving up the junk heap, but it's not enough, and one thing lead to another, I found an add...the interview was great, Hilde, I was great."  
  
"That's good, Duo. But - is there anything else?" The Junker uniform was a dark forest green with orange stripes on the cuffs; it was a button up costume that wrapped about the limbs snugly and had a hood one could button up to the collar.  
  
"I'm...starting in two weeks - training, and all that. I really start at the end of this month, so March first is really my first full work day...the hours are irregular, and I'll be in space most of the time, but the shuttle landing is only a few blocks away, I can walk home when I feel like it. The money for a beginner is good, and I don't work too many days a week, just four." Hilde found herself nodding vaguely, questions yet hopping up and down in her head like children wanting attention.  
  
"That sounds - good. What about the house? How are you going to handle the junkyard? And your record - Duo, you don't have a record. What did you give them for a record?"  
  
"Hilde, don't worry about that, I took care of it." Like an expert, his wolfish grin said. "My record is squeaky clean - I am a model of a young man. And the bosses like me."  
  
"And...?"  
  
"The house will be fine, as long as you check on it once in a while when I'm gone. And the junkyard - I told you, I'm not giving up on that." His enthusiasm was hard to refuse. "Besides, if I come across some really spectacular piece of junk, I can take it with me (I talked with some other Junkers, they all do things off the record quietly, and I'm much sneakier than them)." Now Hilde was returning Duo's grin.  
  
"Duo, if you're happy with this, I'm happy."  
  
"Good. Could you undo the clasp in the back of this, though? I can't reach it." He turned around: Hilde saw he'd gotten the tag snagged in the zipper, which made it impossible for him to unzip his self. With a small sigh she stood up and wrestled with it for a bit. A clasp halfway down his back made her shake her head with wonder.  
  
"It's like the clasp on a bra..."  
  
"Really? How do you gals get it off?" He tried twisting his arm back and feeling for the clasp but could barely brush it with his finger tips - the snug fit of the uniform prevented him from much flexibility. " - I mean, without popping a shoulder blade out of its place. Jeez..." Hilde laughed, snapped the clasp open, and sat down at the table again. Duo wiggled about for a moment before he had the top half of his uniform off, hanging about his waist. He wore a normal shirt underneath that tucked into the fitted waistband of the suit: she recognized it as one he used when fiddling with engines that could prove oily.  
  
Hilde fiddled with the longer bits of hair curling lightly halfway down her neck. She hadn't had it cut in forever - maybe she could grow it out a little more. She had to shake the hair from her eyes when looking directly at a person. The groceries reclaimed her attention after that quiet, stretching pause. She gave a noisy little sound.  
  
"Duo, you owe me money!"  
  
"For what?"  
  
"Stuff from last week and today."  
  
"Wow, what'd you get - ?"  
  
"Go check. I know you haven't really left the junkheap in the last five days, so I thought - "  
  
"Coffee! That's right, I do need some. Thanks!" He set the ground coffee on the counter in an almost ginger manner. The toilet paper he threw over his shoulder; it landed in the hall to be taken upstairs later. Some fruit and more canned stuff made an appearance before the bag was empty. He folded it up neatly and set it underneath the sink. "Thanks. How much do I owe you?"  
  
"Twenty-five bucks and a cup of coffee. Strong." He glanced over his shoulder at her.  
  
"You alright'?"  
  
"Yeah." He set about making the coffee and she watched.  
  
"My landlady raised the rent: I'm looking for another place."  
  
This remark made Duo upset a spoonful of coffee; he busily set about wiping up what he could and dumping it in with the rest, then cleaning the last dusting of ground coffee from the counter. He beat the dusting off his hands over the sink.  
  
"Really, eh? Where do you plan to go?"  
  
"I haven't found a place yet. It was very short notice." He looked over his shoulder at her again, this time measuringly.  
  
"Well, if it's only two weeks - "  
  
"I know, I know. I looked around this morning, but nothing too satisfying came up."  
  
"What if you don't, Hilde?"  
  
"Don't what?" He gave a snort and this hiss of water gave rise to a tiny cloud of smoke spiraling over his shoulder.  
  
"You know what I mean. What if nothing comes up?"  
  
"Something will. This area is always opening up new places." Her chin nestled into the palm of her hand, she leaned her weight on her elbow on the table and stared at its surface. "Sorry I didn't tell you sooner. It's just not happy news."  
  
"Nah, but you'll make it." She gave him a close-lipped smile.  
  
"Thanks." He brought the coffee over in mugs. Her own at a small chip on it, on the handle.  
  
"Anyway, everything else is okay."  
  
"Good. How's work?"  
  
"Nothing new." They sat together in silence for a bit before Hilde cleared her throat. "What else - is there anything else about your new job? Something - I don't know, interesting?"  
  
"Uhm... no, it sounds really boring, actually. But we get alot of sick days and vacations. I'm kind of looking forward to it - it means I'll be in space regularly again." He was smiling to himself as he said this. "Training'll be a cinch, it's mostly operating the Junker and making reparations on it. I haven't met my cabinmates, but I get two. I still need to go through the paperwork, though...there's a lot to cover. Especially on insurance." He sounded a little bewildered now: the paperwork that came with normal daily living still surprised him. Hilde once found him face-down on some forms he had to fill out for the junkheap - not out of vexation at the slow process, but out of boredom - he had fallen asleep. When he woke up, some of the ink (cheap stuff) had run off onto his cheek and the cuff of his sleeve.  
  
"I guess you'll be taking books with you."  
  
"Yeah, I guess."  
  
"You'll get really good reception out there, between satellites. You'll probably catch a news channel from Earth."  
  
"That'd be something."  
  
Silence.  
  
"Hilde, about your apartment..."  
  
"Yeah?"  
  
Duo scratched the underside of his jaw.  
  
"Well, I have an idea." A frown pulled at her eyebrows and she stared at him questionningly. He shrugged. "Just stay here."  
  
"Huh?"  
  
"Hilde, I'll be gone half the week anyway, and there's that extra room upstairs - it makes sense, doesn't it?"  
  
"You mean, me come here, to stay?"  
  
"Sure, there's room, you need a place, why not?" She was hard-pressed to give a reason for refusing his offer and sat in befuddled silence a moment.  
  
"So, wait - you wouldn't mind?" There was that confused-scowl again. He shook his head.  
  
"Hilde, I wouldn't mind."  
  
"I'd help clean upstairs."  
  
"Well..." They stared at each other, a little dumbfounded. "So, does that mean...you'll come here?" She scratched at the side of her mug thoughtfully.  
  
"I guess...I mean, the details need to be worked out, but..." She cocked her head at him and he nodded.  
  
"I guess - we'll be housemates." He said, looking down at the table surface.  
  
"Roommates." Hilde corrected him. She stared at him, hard, with a look that would have made him wince had he been looking. She gave a small cough. "Are you really sure that's okay?"  
  
He looked up again. He saw the hair that needed trimming, the limpid curls lying softly against her neck, and the concern in her eyes and the tension in her shoulders, the way she hunched up like she was waiting for something to fall; for the first time he realized she was wearing that sweater-thing again, the one that folded across her chest and tied at the hip, and that she must really like it because he'd seen it on her so often. She didn't budge when she refused to help him with the paperwork, and she kept track of the money he owed her. He realized that, even sitting down, he was taller than her now: standing, he thought he had seen the top of her head just glancing down. And, with a grin that broke up all the serious consideration, all the wondering in his face, he thought being housemates could be alot of fun.  
  
"Roommates, huh? Sounds good to me. When do you want to move in?" It was her turn to be taken back, and she stared at him dubiously (a twitch near her jaw told him she was chewing the inside of her cheek), hands placed in front of her on the table. Then she looked down, tracing the lifeline on one upturned palm. Without knowing it she had begun to nod to herself.  
  
"Well...I've got some stuff, and - that room needs to be cleaned out (right?), so...whenever the room's ready, I can bring my stuff in." Duo nodded, feeling, now that a decision had been made, much happier and surer about this.  
  
"Faaan-tastic! Do you need help with that?" She shook her head.  
  
"Nah, thanks."  
  
"You don't have furniture?"  
  
"All that I've been using came with the apartment and stays there when I move out." She explained. He leaned an elbow on the table and let his gaze travel, unseeingly, out the window facing the backyard; so, she had lived in a rented apartment with rented furniture...that all sounded very bare. Kind of like a caveman renting from another caveman. With a furtive glance around hisself, he also felt that, while his stuff was secondhand, at least it was his.  
  
"Okay. It's up to you. I know a furniture place - "  
  
"I'll get that on my own, Duo, thanks." He backed down quickly.  
  
"I know, only - I've got a cart in the back, we can drag anything you get back here."  
  
"Sounds good."  
  
Pause....  
  
"Hilde?" She glanced up, puzzled at his tone.  
  
"Yeah?"  
  
"Trust me."  
  
"What?"  
  
"You've got to trust me here."  
  
"Duo..."  
  
"I'm serious. If we're - living - together, then you can't just refuse me like that." She looked like she was growing annoyed so he continued, hastily but firmly. "I mean...look, if it came down to it, I would trust you with my life - my life! Okay? And I really value it, so that I'd give it to you - that's worth just as much. Actually, I think this'll be fun - wait, think about it - hey, was that doubt there? - waking up and always having coffee here and me always making you a cup."  
  
"Yeah, it'll be fun. But it's not going to be that easy."  
  
"No, but - look, we're already referring to this as a set thing! There's stuff to worry about, but I really need your support and faith to deal with it." It was her turn to look down at the tabletop in some confusion and vulnerability.  
  
"Duo...of course I trust you. Completely." She heard him give a long sigh.  
  
"I know that...Hilde, we've had it tough, but...lean on me here, just a little."  
  
She nodded, quickly and firmly. Then she stood up.  
  
"I have to go to work, Duo. I'll come by later for some more planning."  
  
"Maybe you can even help me clean up later, too." His remark bumped a smile onto her face.  
  
"Maybe."  
  
He saw her out at the door. He was leaning against the open door, one hand on the inside-facing knob, the other in his pant's pocket.  
  
She turned, threw her arms around his neck. It was a quick, retreating hug she had to hold herself on tiptoe for. It caught him off guard and by surprise, but just as quickly he hugged her back one-handedly. She pulled back and grinned, elbowing his side lightly. Then she was off.  
  
"See you later, Hilde." He called after her.

TBC - Part 2 still in the works. What'd you think, though? - Becca-W


	19. Ch18, Part 2 Of course

Disclaimer: Usual applies.  
Ch18, Part II  
  
Even he had to admit this duty was beneath him.  
  
Not that he could blame anyone - maybe just the supervisors, but putting blame on anyone was nothing more than owning up to one's own irresponsibility in silence - since cutbacks had pulled the rug from under everyone, anyway. And this did not really get in the way of his work: technically, the hours were more, but he got it done within its former timeframe, the way he had on Earth. It just meant more paperwork per individual.  
  
And there were three there, with him. They were ensnared in a duty usually reserved for police of middle rank. But, due to those aforementioned budget cuts, the police hadn't the resources to fund interspacial duty watch, or the act of floating about in hopes of catching someone illegally transporting goods of any value, etc. It would have fallen to someone else, some other department of law enforcement in space, but the entire system was yet so scrambled that Earth had needed to come to help. Almost as some sort of snide insult, the chore was now with the Preventers who saw it as a necessary nuisance needing the active participation of, well, everyone. Bottom line, if one Preventer agent was to suffer of this, all would.  
  
The duty was remarkably boring. Space had its own beauty, a universal kind anyone could respond to, but after three weeks of floating about in it like a vegetable in broth, he lusted after Earth with all its flaws. He wanted humidity (not the slightly stale, very dry air circulating through the small spacecraft), he wanted natural noises (not the clicking of the surrounding equipment and hi-radar), he wanted food that did not come out of a tube. He'd had a dream in which he had been brushing his teeth with spinach casserole out of a tube for several minutes before realizing the taste in his mouth was one not resulting of dinner (and then he'd woken up and found that, indeed, this really was the truth). And ever since he'd come up here, sleeping and eating and performing in the same, three room's worth of space they shared, he was too bored to fall into any deep sleep and usually just dozed.  
  
"Wufei?" Sally hopped out from behind the wall of equipment in the foremost room of the spacecraft. Wufei glanced up at her. "I was finishing the weekly stats', I need to send it in."  
  
"Done." She regarded him with light surprise.  
  
"Oh. Thanks." She sat opposite in a chair opposite him, head turned to look out the window - the only way to see into space at all, it covered the entire front of the spacecraft, a huge, three-foot-thick wall of glass and lens to watch Space through. She looked as bored as she felt, arms loosely crossed in front, ankles overlapping. She cleared her throat, more for the noise than the attention it received (besides, Wufei ignored it).  
  
"We need to unload the garbage." He said after a time. Sally glanced at the screen and nodded in agreement.  
  
"Yeah...is there a carrier somewhere nearby?" Wufei started looking for a Junker and picked up someone's signal.  
  
"We're heading their way now." Sally nodded, yawned, hid her mouth with a cupped hand.  
  
She took to staring out the window again, her chin lowered and her eyes already half-shut - she looked ready for the sort of doze Wufei knew so well. Then she gave a sigh.  
  
"Considering this is one of my first times in space this is such a letdown. I'm so glad we're only here for another week."  
  
"You're looking forward to teaching that class?" Sally tossed her head so that her hair flew back over her shoulders. She seemed ruffled to have been reminded. Wufei kept his eyes trained on the screen, watching for anything other than the Junker's incoming signals. Then Sally inhaled noisily.  
  
"Not really, no...but at least we'll be home again." She murmured. "Appyling preventer agents are still just kids. At least there aren't too many...even though, I shouldn't say so. The number of applicants were low for this year, even compared to the estimates. I doubt Lady Une's happy with that." Wufei shrugged. He had his opinion (which he usually kept to himself) about the situation regarding new recruits for the Preventer Agency. They just hadn't been around all that long, the agency, that is - even Wufei's record was only a few months old, though he had excellent references.  
  
But Sally was an optimist, and, deep down, only considered this a temporary setback.  
  
The Junker's signal came in much clearer now and Wufei made direct contact with them, explaining their need to unload some of the things they had collected on their travels. More often than was comfortable, the spacecraft came across some large piece of debris, a leftover from some old battlefield. It was unsettling to see these bits and pieces yet causing damage in their limitless trajectories. For him, the war had come to a definitive conclusion, but according to Space the material evidence of this end and the means to which it had arrived at that point was too fresh in its memory still.  
  
The Junker briefly came into view as it sidled up to their spacecraft, its bulky, boxy exterior given the impression of something very disorganized in its design when its purpose was taken into consideration - but everyone knew, Junkers were made of recyclable materials, some of which could not be reshaped. It had to make a large, slow arch around their front before gradually and methodically coming close enough to lower the plank bridge - really more of a tunnel that connected the two crafts - at their exit door. Minutes later, a voice over the computer's intercom asked permission to enter; Wufei gave them the code for the door.  
  
There were two men (the third still in the Junker, acting as watchman) in green, snugly-fitted suits, their helmets under one arm, sporting nametages on the right forearm. One read 'Bren'; the other 'Lean in closer'. Sally had stood by the door while Wufei prepared the hatch in the back to be opened manually and emptied. He didn't greet the Junkers when they came into view on his side of Space while Sally offered to lead them to the back.  
  
"Hey, wait a minute!" Wufei faltered at the computer, looked up. One of the Junkers had approached. "So it's you! Who'd have thought - well, hello!" Wufei's stare was dark and uncomprimising.  
  
"You."  
  
"Yeah, me!"  
  
"...You're a Junker?"  
  
"Yep." Duo pointed to the dogtags Junker's sported, only these hung from a thin, silver band at the wrist. "It's my first week out of training." Without waiting for an invitation he sat down, the material of his suit making a series of odd little crunching noises. "I guess it's just as likely for your head to get blown off as your hand, so they put the 'tags on your wrist instead of around your neck." Wufei didn't formulate a response to this but Duo hopped over the quiet at his own speed. "Your with the Preventers? I heard something about this - police duty, right? - but I thought only lower class agents were to perform."  
  
"That was the plan." Wufei muttered.  
  
"Anyway, looking forward to seeing Earth again? I don't think I'm going back for a while, I've got a house. It's pretty big, too - well, not anymore, I'm sharing it with someone, and that does something to you, your perception of the house. Which reminds me, how long have you been out here?" Wufei's glance flickered from Duo to the back of the room and to Duo again. He normally would not be this conversational, but it wasn't as if Duo couldn't find out on his own - he had even more opportunity now, being with the Junkers. Junkers had access to alot of things.  
  
"Two weeks. One week to go."  
  
"Found anything?"  
  
"No."  
  
"I need to see if there're any interesting junk parts back there - for the family business and all." Duo flashed Wufei his pirate's grin before standing up. He was just on his way when he turned around one final time and added, "By the way, has Heero come to see you at all?"  
  
Wufei's stare narrowed down a great deal and his tone of voice took on great perplexity.  
  
"Why would he do that?" Duo shrugged.  
  
"He visited me a while back. Thought he might be heading back to Earth. You haven't heard a thing?"  
  
"No."  
  
"Okay. Thanks. Be seeing you..." He gave the other a small wave. After a moment Wufei gave him a nod, watching him leave in front of the other with several carts' worth of junk dragging along behind.  
  
Wufei took this to mean Duo was doing well. Sally, coming out from the back, gave him a significant, questioning glance - Was he...? - but, due to the third member of their party, would have to wait asking him any unusual questions. She certainly knew about that one Gundam pilot - you know, that one - who had made an appearance on the news, the image of his unconscious, limp body held up by two Oz soldiers, head hanging to his chest, a little too helpless to appear entirely defeated, his vulnerability contesting with the obvious danger he was. Even though the records and files containing information on the young man were gone, for the most part - so many things are lost in a war, or destroyed or misplaced - alot of people still remembered him. His face had been, at best, obscure, even when seen on a two-story tall screen. And hanging from the shoulders like that, unaware of anything but nonetheless looking ashamed, he seemed younger than his person suggested.  
  
All to his advantage now, of course. There would always be a risk for him operating under normal living conditions, out in society where he might be recognized or where unusual information could be dug up on him. The same went for Wufei who, while unrecognizable in public as a Gundam pilot since neither his name or face made it to the news, yet saw former Oz soldiers or Romafeller officials now working for some other party, some other cause. But the main witnesses to his past life were mostly dead or willingly working alongside him, and wasting any more thought on the subject was that and only that - a waste.

Duo wondered whether it would be appropriate to call out, "I'm home!", and decided against it. Hilde would probably get the joke, but since she moved in the past three weeks had been tinged with awkwardness. They were still unfailingly polite with each other, and Duo got the sense that they were like suspicious animals sharing a cave, testing the waters to see how well cohabitation would go for them. They were slowly getting used to rounding a corner and finding one or the other in the room, cleaning up dishes someone else but them left in the sink, sharing the upstairs and creaking floorboards and noisy door hinges that made all those little, varying noises...  
  
But there was definitely an upswing in mood around the place. Due to a need for self-sufficiency early on, cooking and the most mundane of household chores were quickly dealt with (at least, that was one thing neither really bickered about). And they were not around each other so much that the very footfall of one made the other leave the room for privacy's sake. While Hilde's work hours were generally predictable (she worked mornings to early afternoon), Duo's hours were sporadic and long. Certainly, he only had a four-day work week, but he put in sixty-four hours a week in those four days, sometimes lined up consecutively, sometimes spaced farther apart (he could never really give a good estimate for what the next week would be like). He couldn't help it sometimes - he grumbled about the hours, though the job allowed him alot of unofficial solitude.  
  
Meantime, Hilde grew accustomed to the change. She liked the house. It struck her as having been made for people her size - Duo's gangly form seemed not to mesh with the architecture, the tight doors, the slender frame of the house ending in a steep point at the top of the roof. His person seemed to require more space; Duo never cared, though. While Duo worked (or slept, since, at the end of a sixteen-hour workday he would fall onto his bed for the next seven hours allotted to him) , Hilde formed a regular routine of coming home and doing dishes and otherwise spending time alone. She threw all Duo left on the floor into his room, so the hallway to the front door was completely cleared. She read. When she knew ahead of time she would have something for Duo to eat after work and the required seven-hour-slump following. They reversed the order when Duo stayed at home.  
  
Gradually they came to expect the presence of the other somewhere in the house. The quiet and impersonal setting of the house - one of many, near-identical along that street - made time to self enjoyable and cherished. The cool, white walls, empty of any elaboration, settling into the cold, bare floor. A dull gleam of metal finishing or kitchen appliances, silverware; windows with the shades pulled up unevenly. Even the furniture was untouched by any sentimentality on either parts'; everything was secondhand and worn with age and use, not attachment.  
  
But the shared noise and companionship of two people living in the same space was just as welcome. It even grew comforting. There was nothing specific to hold up as a prime example of their laid-back comfort around each other.  
  
It often came about that, arriving late in the evening, Duo would find Hilde in the one comfy chair on the floor level. She usually turned it towards the windows facing the backyard. Even with the artificial night a glimmer shone through where the sun lay directly, and she often forgot to turn on a light when it darkened like that.  
  
"Hilde..." He crossed the hall and flicked the switch: the kitchen suddenly glared with light that bounded off all the surfaces, and Hilde pulled a hand across her eyes with the sudden change. "Don't read in the dark."  
  
"Hi." She set aside her book - sometimes it was the newspaper, parts of it shedding across her lap while she scrutinized a certain section. "How'd you feel?"  
  
"Hungry." She pointed to a pot on the stove, one that Duo headed for immediately. "What is it?"  
  
"Stew."  
  
"Ah, something primitive - lovely." He enthusiastically spooned large portions into a bowl and, setting it on the kitchen table, sat opposite her in one of the chairs. "How're you?" While the stuff in his bowl cooled a little he undid the upper half of his suit, letting the material fall about his waist undecorously while eating in a thin undershirt. Hilde shrugged, watching.  
  
"Not alot. My paycheck's coming in this Friday, though."  
  
"Good."  
  
"There might be a position opening for manager, Duo. I want to try for it."  
  
"Great! - does that mean a raise?" Hilde regarded him a little irritably.  
  
"Well, not really, it just means the manager works more than the others, but it's a step in that direction..."  
  
"Ah." He took his bowl to the pot for more stew.  
  
"Anyway," Hilde began afresh, "...wish me luck."  
  
"Of course."  
  
"Duo?..." He looked up from where he sat bent over the bowl, eyes peering with a puzzled expression through what hair had fallen into his face .  
  
"Hmm?"  
  
"Why are you eating like a starved bear?" He paused, righted himself, and put some distance between himself and the edge of the table.  
  
"I'm in a hurry - I've got to go in three hours."  
  
"Again?"  
  
"Yup, it's a double shift."  
  
"Should I pack some up for you?" She asked hesitantly. He smiled until she thought laughter and merriment would crowd out any other feeling present in his face. It made her return the smile, and they both sat happily beaming at each other for a moment, bathing in the glow.  
  
"That'd be so, so nice!" He all but chirped. Hilde stood up and looked around for a container of some reasonable size, they always ended up with mismatched ones...ah, found one, and the lid - perfect.  
  
Duo sat up when he thought he heard her groan. He turned to look over his shoulder.  
  
"Hilde?" She was leaning against the counter, one palm pressing into the small of her back, the other lying loosely around her stomach.  
  
"Yeah?" She huffed - not quite in pain, but as though she were impatient with something.  
  
"Are you sick?"  
  
"No, I'm not." She gave another groan, this one more a sound like water tumbling over very hot rocks, hissing and disagreeable. "My stomach hurts. And my back. That's all."  
  
"What do they make you carry at that restaurant?" He remarked jokingly. She only shrugged again and handed him the lidded container full of stew; the container was already warm when Duo weighed it in his hand. "Just go to sleep early, or something."  
  
"Oh brother, Duo...my back and my stomach hurt." She stressed the words until they should have had meaning but her roommate shook the remark off like it was nothing. With one hand still at the small of her back she glared at the back of his head and headed for the bathroom upstairs. "I need to get some midol..."  
  
"Yeah, those overnight colds can be nasty." He said, self-important and a little all-knowing. She paused, disbelief on her face, her back to him. Then she shook her head and continued on up. On the way up, he heard her give that disagreeable, grumbling sigh again.  
  
Heeheehee. I've been wanting to do a scene like that in forever. Anyway, there's part 2 of Chapter 18. I hope you liked it (comments and the like are always, always welcome!). Thanks, Becca-W 


	20. Ch19 Am I like them?

Disclaimer: Usual applies. PS: Heero's ass is the best in Space.

* * *

Oh, all those grabbing, grabbing hands. Relena shook each that came at her, arrows aimed at a target, smiling and nodding, smiling and nodding, smiling and nodding. So many hands. 

_"A formal?" Relena had opened the bathroom door and poked her head out irritably. "In a week? Why now - is this necessary?"_

She chatted everyone up, briefly, succinctly. 'How lovely to see you' or 'Thank you for coming', mostly. When Mrs. Darlian turned to give a more sweeping greeting to one of the guests Relena caught a glimpse of bare neck - the deep scoop in the back of the dress bared the tips of her mother's shoulder blades, the strong muscle of her neck. She looked truly beautiful, in Relena's opinion. Oh, but she was forgetting to smile, and half-bow, and nod, and greet, and shake hands with, and smile some more...

_"Relena, this is part of your campaign - you have nothing to whine about." Dim yelps of, "I'm not whining!" came from inside the bathroom but Mrs. Darlian only shook her head again. "We will need to do this more often - but this is such a busy time, it will not be hard to fill a hall with people, especially politicians."_

Well, the hall was full now. Relena weaved her way through the loose crowd to indulge in more chatting-up - it happened that she first came upon Senator Doyle (an American senator) and his daughter (if she remembered correctly the daughter's name was Olivia - but it was difficult to misplace that pinched face, all cheekbones and eyes, with a thin slit of unforgiving mouth).

"Good evening, Senator Doyle." They shook hands. Then Relena turned to Olivia. "Hello, how are you tonight?"

Olivia Doyle, due to that pinched expression in her face, constantly emanated disdain. This time she appeared more pleasant, more colorful. The corners of her mouth turned up as she responded with an equally civil, "Good evening, very well, thank you."She wore a bright silk gown trimmed closely to the body and the angular flare of her hips. She seemed thin enough to be transparent and hung from the arm of her father like a talking paper cut-out.

_Relena held up the dress she was to wear to the formal and considered it closely. She was tired, goodness knows, but her mother picked this out for her and it deserved the attention - she so appreciated what her mother was doing for her, all crabbiness aside...Relena scrutinized it. The color - oh, this had been her father's favorite color on her, and Relena's breath hitched the slightest at this._

Chea and Official Rigoldi stood clustered with a group of others at one side of the hall. Upon seeing Relena Rigoldi waved her over, the movement awkward as the hand she gestured to Relena with was also the hand holding a small flute of champagne. Her other grasped Chea's hand in a familiar grip.

"Good evening, Foreign Prime Minister."

"Good evening - hello, Chea." The woman smiled, a gentle warmth glowing around her face, and raised her own glass in greeting. Relena was re-introduced to the Sanders, a family similar to her own in its political traditions and heritage, who were traveling Space for another week before returning to Sweden. Their's was a happy, albeit quick exchange - then interrupted by the approach of Olivia Doyle, this time unaccompanied by her father (who Relena spied talking with the Chairman of Electoclectic, yet another of her sponsors and donors). Relena introduced Olivia to the rest.

"Well, how are you enjoying space?" Chea asked Olivia. Olivia shrugged, a small frown settling over the pointed archs of her eyebrows.

"Oh, busy, really - I'm traveling with father now, and that is - well, trying. Political agenda and all." She directed a tight smile at Relena (apparently, eased-up smiles were not in her supply of made-to-wear facial expressions). "I don't mean any offense, it's only, I'm not used to father's schedule." Relena shook her head and smiled.

"Of course. I understand that you model, though?" A preening glow took hold of Olivia's thin, whispy figure and she straightened (Rigoldi would later say she "un-shriveled").

"Well, yes, but that is entirely different, and I have never modeled in Space before. Flights on Earth are much less warisome." Chea nodded gently - like a flower with a too-heavy bloom drooping on its slender stem - and took another sip of her champagne. Shortly thereafter the group disbanded and Relena wandered to another, and another, and around the room she trooped on nothing but two half-glasses of champagne and a few finger sandwiches. (Again, she forgot to eat).

_"Oh bother." Relena thought to herself the night before the formal. "Oh bother...it's eleven again. Or at least, it is on Earth. In Cinq, at home. I do wonder, now, how people get anything done in one life time - and since there is proof that it has been done, perhaps millions of times before, how did those people do it? How did they leave such an enormous impact on the rest of the human history? I can't make sense of it anymore, all order has escaped my world, and all I can think of are dramatic interpretations of the same...and tomorrow it starts all over again. Is progress, advancement and accomplishment all biproducts of 'just doing it'?" Relena, then lying on her bed, turned on her back and chewed the inside of her cheek. "Is that really what it is, 'just doing it'?...."._

Relena turned and joined Sir and Lady Mitchell with the Slanksteins near the punch bowl. She still hadn't finished her champagne.

_Relena turned back on her stomach and propped her chin up awkwardly on the backs of her hands, thoughtful. It would have been difficult to provoke her attention in this state, it was somewhere else completely. The ticking of the clock on the bedside table failed to bleed through the gauzy wrapping of her wary, tired mind. Her mother tried knocking at her door but didn't persist - after all, it was almost 11:30, Relena was probably asleep by then, she thought. Meantime, Relena continued in a half-doze, not managing to gain a foothold in any of her thoughts and leaving them undone to move onto something else. The campaign. That, and the project consuming most of her days of refitting elderly colonies for proper human habitation, never failed to dazzle her. She felt mindboggled by the possibilities. Naturally, what she was doing was not actively, officially campaigning - no, that required much more money, more televised news conferences, and interviews that more closely resembled sibling spats than civil adult banter._

_She was, however, advertising herself - making herself a more relatable, or at least more welcoming person in the eyes of her peers. She wanted to keep her office, knew several of her opponents (had she not declined the offer of running, one such opponent would have been Rigoldi), and therefore - did what her mother told her to do. 'Mother knows best.' While they had their tiffs Relena knew - Mrs. Darlian had seen more of the late Mr. Darlian's campaigning than need be mentioned._

What a surprise to welcome Lady Une at this gathering - that she had even bothered! Relena felt somehow proud, even went so far as to preen herself a little at the other's presence. They spoke for a while, discussing less-worn topics having little to do with Relena's work. Relena had to look up to meet eyes with her - with her hair piled up that way Lady Une seemed taller, elongated, and Relena, it seemed, was to be always stuck with the label 'petite'.

"By the way, how is Mariemaia?" Lady Une's nose wrinkled a little in thought before she responded. A waiter came by with a tray of filled champagne glasses and Lady Une slipped one from the tray without attracting his notice.

"Very well, thank you for asking." Now she smiled, swirling the champagne in her glass around. "Actually, her physical therapy is moving along quickly. She's impatient, though. And, " Here Lady Une's expression held a wry, smirking quality that seemed to be directed more at her charge than Relena, "She has been avidly following the various candidates for office in the Earth Sphere United Nations. It gets her mind off walking but she takes it quite seriously." Relena laughed lightly, reservedly.

"Oh? Well, she certainly understands politics - she could probably reason politics better than most people in the position." Lady Une bowed her head as though to nod but glanced at Relena with lowered eyelashes - a very faintly smug, knowing, even seductive expression.

"We both know she is more than simply intelligent, or precocious. She has genius, and Mariemaia - is very much like...her father." Here a starched quality came between the two - and the differences between each other, one who idolized Treize Kushrenada post mortum, the other more a victim of his schemes as well as a former political opponent, suddenly broke them apart. Lady Une cleared her throat. "I mean to say - she will know more than any above-average adult about these elections, and their outcomes. She especially expresses interest in you." Relena repeated her laugh.

"In that case...well, I'm flattered." Lady Une looked a mite puzzled at this reply, then shook it off and gave Relena small, private grin.

_1 AM. Relena could not sleep. She mused she had filled her head with so many half-baked ideas it could not shut down properly. More realistically, it might have been the fault of the espresso she had with dinner. So she turned and squirmed and rolled round in her bed, warming the sheets until all thankful coolness had evaporated and the contents of her pillow had gathered in one end, leaving the other end horribly flat. She finally climbed out from under the covers and lay on the rumpled surface of her bed, waiting for her skin to cool down. It was quite a wait. Relena lay on her back, blinking up at the ceiling and not feeling in the least tired. She still felt full from dinner, and that had ended five hours ago. Then again, she did not need that much food, and she filled up so quickly...sheets took so long to cool down, but waiting for her body to do the same was slow going, too...there was no fan in this room. Nothing had a fan in space - fans circulated too much dust and were only used on Earth these days. But only when she held really still - still enough that not a sheet rustled, that she could feel the blood in her ears rushing in and out with every heartbeat - could she hear the whispered breath of the air purifier.......uggh, these sheets were never going to cool down._

Relena's head turned in the direction of sudden laughing. She caught sight of Chea with her arm around Rigoldi's shoulders - Chea was indeed taller, by almost a head - head back and looking extremely entertained. Despite the usual grousing expression on Rigoldi's face - that surly look Relena was so used to - Chea had made her smile. Then Chea brought her face to Rigoldi's ear and her arm tightened around the other's shoulders - now Rigoldi gave a brief, barking laugh. The party took on a more mirthful color at that point, and Relena started on her rounds again. (Meet - greet - shake - bow - smile - laugh - chat - twirl - chat - chat chat chat). That moment she had witnessed reenergized her - even though, she let off on the champagne at that point. She could only sustain so much bubbly before the tipsying effects began to show. How inelegant that'd be! She shuddered inwardly at the prospects of those 'tipsying' effects.

* * *

So the dress was put away and Relena put under the yoke again. The hours she kept raised her mother's eyebrows though Mrs. Darlian chose to tactfully say nothing of the matter. Sleep, apparently, was not the precious stuff it used to be. But the puffiness fled from Relena's face as she dug herself deeper into her work, replaced by a gray, wary light that retreated only in front of a camera or in an interview. The puffiness must have been a warning of her coming physical exhaustion - and now she was past the point where it mattered. So the puffiness left. All good. 

Relena gathered her team around her, made her people also her security, her support group, the voices that lent strength to her single call, her pack. There were people who could move between her pack, herself, and the outside world but they might as well have stitched the word 'Outsider' into their clothing. They were not let in. This meant she was guaranteed solidarity as well as companionship. And her mother was always there, more there than she had been in years. She could not remember her mother being so consistently nearby since she turned twelve and started studying at that boarding school. That was roughly about the time time things went crazy at home. Those years marked the last phase of the Alliance's downfall, whose authority had already been so undermined that the only surprise was OZ's relatively leisurely pace in taking over.

Meantime, Relena met a wider range of people than heretofore - hard to believe? Some of these people had nothing more to do with politics or business or advertising than, "Oh, that's my father." or, "I'm his/her date." Such as the senator's thin model-daughter, who Relena saw several times at various events in Space over the next few months, or Official Rigoldi's father (a former plumber), or the team leader to a children's summer camp who was also the cousin of a chairman. So while the hole in her head, that gossamy, silky, watery place she crept into when having suffered too much use, filled with the gray that had become the tempo of her life, she shook oh so many hands OH SO MANY HANDS! that the uinnterrupted act of writing - notes, speeches, jokes - became a coveted moment of bliss.

But besides her work and sleep and the activities that filled a day, she found little nuggets of time - moments - minutes - in which her musings took sudden, vindictive control of her mind and refused to let go. At these times she'd be found staring at nothing and, apparently, meditating. At that point, one would have to repeat the question one asked her only once more, and she would come to life with an attentive smile.

For example, the off-moments really got to her. Not unusual, not strange, not foreign in nature - moments that were just a little unbalanced, just somehow 'off'. Like a crooked wall or one of those mens' calendars that, despite being filled with busty, smiling women offering bets on the depth of their cleavage, manage to be boring anyway. (The same went for womens' calendars chock-a-block with construction workers in too-small, dusty jeans handling drill bits and smirking). For the life of her Relena could not recall that time in the elevator a pizza dropped and stuck to the lower half of her pantleg (and how the pizza carrier turned a shade of pink she thought meant self-asphyxiation). The only other who remembered was her mother, who had been standing by when the elevator doors opened onto a dazed Relena and gasping pizza guy. But she did remember the formal, simple - yet off!!! - introduction to a certain Roan Harris ("Why, that's Congressman Harris and his daughter, Roan. I believe she's taking time off from...well, something").

A delicate pink silk sweater with a plunging v-neck reaching down to the navel, baring the watery rose silk camisole with lacy froth edging the sweatheart neckline. The hem of the camisole hung a little past that of the sweater, complimenting the cream-colored pencil skirt in a sueded cotton hitting just above the knee. The patterned hose - white - ran down the length of her legs into the confines of red velvet ballet flats with a darker rose trim. Her dark brown hair tied into a chignon at the back of her head, and she kept her hand in the crook of her father's arm at entering the room.

Roan Harris was statuesque and quiet, and towered over her father; he, meanwhile, gleamed in a faintly brutish, jolly way. He was burly but had grown squat with the coming of his mid-fifties. Where she said little he spoke continuously, and where she seemed the definition of sophistication he appeared crude when put at her side. When Relena met her all Roan gave her was a formal thanks and a smile. But it was a beautiful smile.

Congressman Harris was the sort of man to simply enjoy feminine beauty - the rumors of his affairs were understated in the retelling more to lessen the impact than to spread it. While faintly incestuous in appearance there were simple reasons for why the two got along so well despite so many differences and old familial break-ups: Roan Harris was a kind of human pet, all velvet and silk, well-kept, well-looked after, and too gentle to resist; her father liked her for her grace and her beauty, its timelessness. He enjoyed her manner, her ease around company. She added care and reserve to his rough edges. She was seen on his arm like this at any event he went to. But she never really seemed to get out much - nor care that she didn't. Roan seemed very happy, on the other hand, with velvet ballet flats the color of roses and sweaters of pure silk.

"It is wonderful to meet you, Foreign Vice Minister Darlian."

"I am glad to finally make your aquaintance, Ms. Harris."

"Roan, please."

Now what had been odd about that moment? Granted, it was a very ordinary semi-formal introduction - but it had that flavor of oddness Relena always kept an eye out for. And she kept track of oddness, so she eyeballed the father-daughter couple on their way into the luncheon.

Later, it happened that Roan and Relena bumped elbows in the buffet line (which just settled the matter for her, this confirmed her suspicion of a coming Moment of Oddness).

"I beg your pardon." They echoed each other. Roan smiled at her, dimpling faintly.

Another introduction led to light, unrelated chitchat. Roan was level-headed but very tame. Her opinions could only be called general. But a kindness bled through that bland, if beautiful personage that made her more interesting, a kind of case-study for Relena.

Relena and Roan went off to find a restroom. But it was clear that they were a little lost. Relena then came across a door she thought seemed familiar to her. It hadn't any specific markings so she took her chances with luck.

She gripped the doorhandle and quickly opened. Relena stopped, stared, and gaped a little. She still managed to bite her tongue in the process, somehow.

It was a kind of sitting room (but small). Sun shone in through windows higher up on the wall. A couch in the tradition of candy-colored stripes, a bare floor, and attractive furniture completed it. But Relena's eyes had been torn to the gentle activity on the couch. Chea and Rigoldi sat there, arms around each other and kissing. They were completely oblivious to any commotion (or creaking door hinge) that might have otherwise bothered them. Even sitting Chea was a mite taller, and her arms hugged Rigoldi close, her hands on her the other's back, stroking encouragingly. Rigoldi's right hand brought her girlfriend's head in for the more vigorous kissing, the other hand held her at the waist. Hair had been slightly mussed and jackets lay abandoned on one of the couch's armrests. They never noticed when Relena shut the door as quickly as she'd opened it.

Relena stepped back. She'd never walked in on someone before. Not even her parents. Roan hung back, clearly puzzled.

"That wasn't it?" She asked, uncertain. Relena glanced over her shoulder.

"No, sorry. Let's check down this hall." Relena said, already backing away from the door. Roan followed, and Relena, for a split-second, met her eyes without the pretense of being polite about it. She saw a maddeningly, timelessly gorgeous woman in front of her - dressed in the most delicate of things. The velvet would one day soon wear off those flats. Dust could marr that skirt for eternity, and nothing but kid gloves and freshly-scrubbed skin could come in contact with that camisole. Her hair and cuticles and skin were near-flawless. To look her in the face would be to think a beauty mark a flaw if one had existed anywhere on it.

Yet forthat handsome exteriorshe was completely taken care of by her father, who never seemed to hear or ask for her opinion. Relena had watched, and in the short time she'd had for character-studying, that little bit seemed to fit another piece into the puzzle that was Congressman vs. Roan Harris, or caretaker vs. a gilded lily.

Oh the people you meet, and oh what questions they make you ask yourself. Do meeting people, a social component that makes up so much of peoples' lives,influence so much ofwhat you ask yourself? - almost as a kind of reaction to those peoples' very presence? How crazy - how absurd, really!

...But it could it be?

* * *

There you have it. See, I'm not all gone. Not entirely sucked up by the Void That Is School(work). Despisable Void that it is. Thank you so for reading - Becca-W 


	21. Ch20 As a Child I Was

Disclaimer: Usual applies. So does a salt-and-pepper mustache. **read on**

* * *

Some things never change - such as airport traffic or snack machines. Now, with his carryon sitting between his feet and the odd feeling of a bared throat to distract him, the doctor waited for his shuttle to announce departure time. With his head leant back on the (fucking hard) rim of his chair Dr. J surveilled the territory under near-closed eyelids, reposing with enough effort to appear like an old man only taking a cat nap. He could still feel some crumbs from his earlier snack in his teeth and worked at them with a toothpick he let hang between his lips. From time to time he would bring a hand up to brush along his jaw where a thick, stubbly salt-and-pepper growth formed a rakish set of whiskers to replace the long hair he used to have in the back. Granted, the salt-and-pepper nature of his beard was fading, mostly gray now, but - hell, it made him look like some goddamn history professor. On vacation. 

The aging leather carryon did not help fight this resemblance, even though that had been his intent. Dr. J needed to look like - someone other than his usual self.

Again he brought a hand up to brush lightly against the hair on his face. He was reminded of the bristles of a boar's hide, gave an unsavory grunt, and dropped the hand. Besides, it'd look odd for some history mole to be feeling up the whiskers on his face. So he let his hands link over his stomach and relaxed. But if any little shit decided to poke at his carryon, the pseudo-history mole would have some real time to relax just beating him up. It was a faint hope, but hope was what would eventually kill the human race. (Somehow, this qualified as a reason to indulge in the stuff for him).

He was irate. He was grumpy. He was so highly irritated with the lucklessness of his search for his invention, thinking about it made spit gather at the corners of his mouth. He was jumpy and mean, quick-tempered; a bad tipper. He was unhappy in the clothes he used for the trip - conventional, restraining things like slacks and vests. He snapped at strangers. He did not take care of his facial fur, only doing so when traveling (unfortunately, that's why he had the stuff in the first place - to screen anyone prying from his actual identity. And he was traveling relatively often now). The stump of his arm - covered in a netted, black material he did not care to hide - frightened the sheep away, leaving behind the clowns and assholes he kept meeting in these places.

The coffee was horrible. He had never been a committed coffee drinker, but he had tried - paid! - for some a half hour ago and his stomach had a sour feel to it now. Bitter as battery acid. He rubbed his hands over his rumpled shirt in a half-hearted attempt to calm his insides. Glancing over, he spied a newspaper someone had left behind, so he picked it up.

Ah, local. A general update on ESUN Foreign Ministry doings. Fun.

The ESUN had been a charming idea, and so far, it seemed to be working. As it was only a few months old, though, 'seemed' was a shaky basis for assuming its longevity. A combination of parliamentary and presidential goverment structures, it had a vast, heavyhanded checks-and-balance system to keep its members in line - people with an unusual amount of power at their disposal. Dr. J had not at all trusted this, despite his knowledge of the checks-and-balance system at work. Every branch (or ministry) of the ESUN - domestic, foreign/interspacial, agricultural, financial, preventative, and civil service - had a President, under which worked up to ten ministers. The Presidents of each branch connected directly to his or her ministers, who connected directly to their fellow ministers in other branches. Working beneath these ministers were civil servants (permanent workers) and a hodge-podge of ambassadors, interest group/union party officials, political interns, party members, etc (who came and went with the flux of power). From there, the ESUN could connect to interest groups on a global scale as well as involve itself in politics of various countries.

The ESUN was not a creation belonging to one country, but a web spanning across each major country not entirely destroyed or disabled through war. While this offered some rare flexibility on its side, it also prevented it from interfering with a country's politics that it disagreed with. Most likely, though, the heads of the most powerful political parties in that country worked in the ESUN, too, so those leaders would be forced to at least listen to ESUN officials whether they would take their advice or not. Presidents in the ESUN, though, could not work in the same capacity in a specific country. They could, however, work in lesser positions that were not entirely political - chairman or overseer-of-activities in a union, for example. The structure of the ESUN had been planned with a clear outline of who was in power, who to go to, etc. It was exacting and required an enormous network of agents titled more simply civil servants. These civil servants did not have an expiration date as to their work in the ESUN - they could continue doing their job there for life, if they so chose to. While Presidents, Ministers, and closer subordinates had to run for re-election every few years, they kept the system running smoothly.

Presidents and ministers ran for election every eight years. While a presidential candidate could suggest someone as minister he or she could not hire them outright. Below the line of ministers, though, elections were not international, but ran through an electoral college set up within the ESUN framework. While Presidential and Ministerial terms were very long, the extensive checks-and-balance system (supposedly) would keep misuse of power at bay. Background checks were repeated annually, though, and the same members who could wield so much power over, technically, an entire planet had to submit to thorough checks every two years that covered, in exacting measure, what they had been doing up to that point. It was hoped that this would encourage the public's trust in its political officials - a point on which, with various exceptions, public relations sagged.

While Vice Foreign Minister Relena Dorlian was extremely well-liked, most others working with her had yet to prove themselves to the public. Her success was too much of a freak-happening to elicit much envy, though. And she was kept equally busy within her occupation, so complaints were, generally, at a minimum. (Do take into account, please, that the checks-and-balance system taxed her heavily - because of her age and suspicious involvement with war rebels, and their disappearance, the year before, she had to submit to thorough searches of person, home, and work every few months, yet another point no one envied her on).

In the Foreign Ministry branch, President Emily Takoda headed a unit of five ministers - including Relena, there was Minister Lados, Minister Akhi-al, Minister Smithers, and Minister Argo.

(As though to highlight their position in Foreign/Interspacial Ministry, each came with a culturally expressive background - Relena was from Cinq, Lados from Lithuania, Akhi-Al from Iran, Smithers from America, and Argo from Greece. President Takoda was Vietnamese-American). Of the five, Relena was the only one to handle relations with space as much as she did - the others dealt more with varying factions on Earth. The Foreign/Interspacial Ministry consisted of the largest web of subordinates due to the rather vague, general category it belonged to. While Domestic Ministry dealt with Space only 10 of the time, Foreign/Interspacial Ministry was in steady communications with the colonies - its time was more than equally split between Earth and Space.

Meanwhile, Dr. J had finished reading the article - but his head was still swimming with all he knew about the baby organization, the Earth Sphere United Nations. Now, if he had the power of intuition, and he rather fancied he had something paralleling that, the colonies would come up with something like it, but on a smaller scale to accomodate their present lack of funds and resources. All this dependence on an organization built to look out for Earth's needs must be - somehow demoralizing. It couldn't possibly be helping growth, inspite how the colonies needed its aid. And, he had to admit, the Foreign Ministry branch was working well with such a vague agenda. But it had excellent help, particularly from local security forces, the Preventers, etc. (According to That Feeling Dr. J also rather fancied it was Relena Dorlian who would help set up a united Space front, considering the depth of her relations with the colonies).

Finally, his shuttle was called. Hearing the voice of the intercome announce boarding shook Dr. J from his musings. He stood up, bent down groggily to get his carryon, and sauntered off to queue up for the shuttle.

At this rate, he just might find the bastard kid yet.

* * *

Relena had just donned her pajama top when Mrs. Dorlian knocked at the door. Relena told her to come in - sounding a little puzzled at this late-night visit - and sat at the bed looking at her expectantly. Her mother smiled at her in a way she hadn't in quite a while. 

"Your aunt is pregnant!" She announced almost proudly.

"Aunt Vianne?"

"Yes!"

"Fantastic." Relena said. Her mother nodded and sat next to Relena on the bed. She wore a terrycloth bathrobe and smelled of lotion.

"We talked briefly - it was worth the charges they put on those phone calls. She looked so happy."

"Is she okay? Vianne tends to..."

"I know, I gave her some ideas to keep her busy. A few children-rearing books, nothing harmful in the longterm, just enough to keep her occupied until she's too big to dwell on anything but the baby." Despite herself Relena raised her eyebrows in wonder.

"'Child-rearing books'?" She quoted. Her mother nodded.

"Certainly, several titles I myselffound quite helpful." Then she grimaced. "Although, some of those might be jumping ahead, I wouldn't want Vianne thinking of child tantrums in the sixth grade before she even knows the fetus' sex..."

"But - you read child-rearing books?" To her knowledge Relena was the only child her parents had - they had attempted having children on their own, but some complications had made the outlook of becoming pregnant - unlikely. They might have succeeded had they not been given Relena, who they must have found was enough to satisfy their small family.

Her mother stared at her seriously - but amusement made her eyes dance.

"Of course." She said nothing else, thereby prodding Relena for more.

"But - on what?" Relena had always thought herself a calm child - perhaps too serious even. But none of that was enough to warrant "When Your Child Strikes Back"-esque afterdinner reading - right?

Her mother shrugged.

"It was simply a matter of changing course, Relena. Your father and I had been trying for a child for three years when we got you - during that time I read books on pregnancy, children, babies, psychology. Nothing paranoid. I just became, naturally, interested in the topic. Really, the longer you try - and the longer you go without any kind of success - the more determined part of you becomes. So when we had you - I moved on to reading more suitable to the stage of development you were in." Interested, Relena waited to hear more. Mrs. Dorlian paused to gather her thoughts. "I found it extremely interesting, especially since - you were an unusual child." She paused again, then continuing, more sure of herself. "When you came to us, you knew something very big had happened - that a large change had occurred in your life. You fought us just as you fought remembering what had happened, despite your age. It took months for you to feel comfortable around us even though you loved us early on. And we adored you even sooner than that." Relena's mother smiled at that.

"And you used to babble. You would switch from babbling baby-talk to speaking whole sentences, about anything. You would tell us stories in the car. You would talk to people in the elevator and repeat jokes you heard. Then you fell quiet, a year and half after you came to us. You didn't babble anymore. We took you to a child psychiatrist who told us that you were still in shock." Mrs. Darlian touched Relena's arm, gently and reassuringly. The other inched closer. "Apparently you had seen more than any of us really knew. And there was nothing we could do but work towards a happier future. We enrolled you in kindergarten and you seemed happy. You made friends - but I never heard you babbling anymore." Now Relena leaned her head on her mother's shoulder, listening, spellbound. "In fact, you became very quiet and reserved early on. Do you remember Mrs. Kioka?" Relena nodded against her mother's shoulder, feeling the slurred vibrations running through her mother's body whenever she spoke. "That was another child psychiatrist we took you to. We were worried. But this time, we did not involve the doctor in your past, only telling her you had experienced a tragedy unknown to us prior to our adopting you. She told us this might or might not be a result of this incidence. We didn't take you to a psychiatrist again after that.

"I read up on child psychology, various things on child behavior patterns and parenting. You would rebel - nothing outright or involving alot of noise. I can't remember the last time you threw a tantrum. But you would keep in your room, sullen, for days. Before your father took you on his business trips you would lock yourself in a room - any room in the house - for a day in that mood. You kept track of when he would be gone and reminded him constantly if an important date came anywhere near his 'disappearances'." Pause. "In those moods you would refuse to read with me at night - remember, I'd read to you in bed? You had such funny moods and their unpredictability sent me scurrying to the books. But you were just - you. Even your sullen moments were expressions of the individual. But you can never tell a parent not to worry and expect them to listen." Relena felt her mother's cool fingers stroke her forehead. "I'd remember how you had come to us, bewildered and alone - that you refused to sleep in anything but a lighted room for months after - and I would melt. Your father despaired at not always being there to help you."

"That's why he started taking me with him on his trips?"

"Partly. I think he was lonely, too. You shared his passion for travel early on, so you would go and I'd wait for the two of you to come back." Relena loved the feel of those cool fingers on her forehead and leaned into her mother a little more while she went on, "It took practice, but we managed a schedule that let you miss as much school as possible without your getting behind." There was a moment of collective quiet while they listened to each other breath. Then, "You were a quiet, calm student. You never bothered to be empassioned on anything unless it was in strong disagreement. I think - something in the past taught you a self-control that became a protective shield for you later, in school and in public with your father."

Bull's eye. How early did she know this?

"By this time you couldn't remember a time when you weren't with us. It became harder to tell you about - anything - concerning that time in your life, so we said nothing." She sounded sad.

"But why didn't you tell me I was a Peacecraft later?" She felt her mother shake her head.

"No, that was too soon - it always felt too soon. We didn't want your world to splinter the way it had, and we thought the trauma of your childhood would come back to haunt us if we did tell you. But we ended up telling you too late - it was the worst possible way for you to find out. I am, and always will be, sorry for that. We could have prevented it." Relena looped her arms around her awkwardly in a hug.

"No...no, that really wasn't so bad. It was father's death that made everything hard."

Relena felt the quiver in her mother's body before Mrs. Dorlian began to openly cry. She hugged her mother tighter, trying to remember the last time she had cried. She had never really seen her mother cry - she was prepared to grieve, to show sorrow and sadness and despair, but tears had never wormed their way to the surface of her emotions. At least, that was how Relena thought of it. To be the only thing capable of anchoring her mother in the present - from letting her do no more than look over her shoulder at past disappointment and grief - was an odd, unusual feeling. She kept her hold on Mrs. Dorlian tight, face pressed into her mother's terrycloth sleeve.

Maybe grief crumbled like old cake. Maybe it grew stale with time, flaking and giving off dust when touched. No...grief aged, but it did not dissolve or atrophy as would be wished. It bogged a person down. It was the main aging component that dragged a person into old age. Past disappointments, griefs, anger, everything - the gray that marked the elderly, living underneath a person's skin like worms below the ground in a frost.

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Please review - thanks (especially for your patience! ). Becca-W  



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